The Irrelevant Equation of 1 plus 1
by SmallerThan
Summary: He looks down at his flipper, which was held by Marlene’s paw. They were different, both outside and inside, but he knew that they loved each other despite the differences. As Marlene had said, either way you add it you still get two. First Marski fic!
1. Assumptions

Hey people! So, my ideas for a new story had been buzzing around my head, and than a miracle happened, and her name is Blouper! Thanks SO much for helping me out in this! Dear readers, a round of applause, this story wouldn't have happened or been as good as it is if it weren't for her. Anywho, enjoy!

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Assumptions

Kowalski takes out his telescope and adjusts the focus knob, turning it until the picture in front of him is as clear as it would be if he were right in front of it. He smiles excitedly as he gets his notepad out and begins to write down observations.

_Mother appears to be working alone in incubation process, _he writes, down _reason for father's absence is unknown. _

He watches the mother eagle eagerly as she settles gently over a single egg. He hadn't been able to believe that an actual eagle was really setting up her nest on top of an apartment building beside the zoo, but now that he knew that it was actually happening he felt the pulling urge to study this strange phenomenon.

_Reason for location choice still an enigma._

What an odd place to settle in. Still, he wasn't complaining, this could be the key to a major breakthrough, in what he didn't know, but he was sure that it would be major.

The eagle shifts a bit to the right getting herself more comfortable and Kowalski rushes to write down a detailed description of it. He looks back over his notes not being able to help bouncing in place from excitement.

"Kowalski!

Startled, Kowalski throws his notepad into the air, hitting the telescope as he jumps into position. He turns to see Skipper in front of him with his flippers crossed. The notepad falls on top of Skipper's head with a dull "thud". Skipper glares. Kowalski chuckles nervously as he steps back from Skipper, preventing a fight that he would be sure to loose.

"What are you doing man?" He asks. Kowalski picks up his notepad and than walks back to his telescope again, motioning Skipper over.

"Do you know what that is?" He asks elatedly. Skipper raises an eyebrow.

"A telescope?"

"No," Kowalski leads him to it, suggesting for him to take a look through. Skipper places his eye to the lens and gasps revolted.

"What's this supposed to be man? Some kind of sick joke?" Kowalski looks trough the telescope again, confused at Skipper's reaction. He feels himself turn scarlet at what he sees. Obviously when he hit the telescope he had moved it to another place of focus.

"Oh, no, that's not what I meant," Awkwardly, he moves the telescope until it was back where it should be.

"Listen Kowalski, when we agreed to join the military we also agreed to not let any personal affairs get in our way." Says Skipper, "I would have thought you knew that by now."

Kowalski looks down to hide his embarrassment. How was he to know that the telescope would point to a couple at the park?

"It was not my intention to show you…that." He says pointing to the telescope, "I meant to show you this." Skipper steps up to the telescope hesitantly, giving him a quick questioning look before doing what he asked.

"Well," he says stepping back, "that's one unexpected sight." Kowalski nods feverishly.

"And once I gather enough data I might just have caught on to the exact figures that I have been searching for so long."

"Really?" asks Skipper, "How long?"

"To this exact moment; 10 minutes and 47 seconds." Replies Kowalski. Skipper nods, then the well-known "this is a conspiracy" look appears on his face.

"But how can you be sure that that really is an eagle?" He asks taking another look through the telescope, "What if this is just another one of Blowhole's attempts to take me down?" His eyes begin to narrow in paranoia that Kowalski knew would get carried away if he didn't stop it soon.

"Impossible," he says quickly, "the chances of that are 4.5%" He draws a few doodles on his notepad making sure to that they look convincing.

"Yeah?" Asks Skipper skeptically, "Johnson said that during out trip to the Arizona desert. He darn close became the main appetizer of three young chicks." Kowalski could tell that he wasn't succeeding in holding back the paranoia.

"But Skip-"

"No buts," interrupts Skipper raising his wing in the air, "You will keep watch over that eagle and her every move. I want a full report on my desk by the 0700's tomorrow." Kowalski sighs in relief. So maybe the paranoia had been useful this time.

"And make sure to stay away from that flying threat." He says turning back to him narrowing his eyes. Kowalski could feel his smile slipping.

"Yes sir." He says giving what he hoped to be a convincing military salute. Skipper seems to buy it and goes back to drink his coffee at the table. Kowalski turns flips through his notepad. Inconspicuously, he looks at Skipper over it making sure that he was absorbed in his own thoughts before beginning to write again. Part of his plan of investigation was to get a few samples of the nest's various fibers; a step that he believed to be critical.

_How to get near nest without Skipper noticing, _he writes across the page. He remembers smugly back for a second to the time he had spent deciphering the "older code". He was now fluent in his writing and very proud of it too. It was also very convenient that he was the only one that could, Skipper would never know what it was he was writing right now, and he was sure that he wouldn't like it if he did. Pretending to be writing down more notes on the eagle, he scribbles down what he would need to do first.

_Get Skipper away from here, perhaps distract him somehow. But how long? A few days? Though I might need more time then. And how will I manage to do that? _

He taps his pencil to his chin in thought. What would be the one thing that would draw Skipper away from the zoo for a long enough time?

Kowalski's eyes grow wide as an idea comes to his head. His flipper shakes a bit as he writes down option one.

He reads back over it and smiles. Skipper would be proud. Still, would he really do that to his team? Sure, no harm would come from it, and he knew that this was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. Still… _Come on Kowalski, your father always told you that science is what makes the world go round. _He wasn't sure what his dad meant by it but he was sure that he didn't want the world to stop spinning simply because he didn't watch an eagle. _There you go, Kowalski _he thinks, _you're actually doing the world a favor…do it in the name of science. _He nods to himself as he goes to his table and begins to work on his plan, making sure that the others don't notice what he was doing.

"Hey guys!"

Kowalski hears the voice that didn't belong in his group and instantly drops what he was doing, jumping into position. Skipper had taken the time to train them all especially so that they became attuned to each other's voices. With tape recordings of other animal's he had taught them to jump on guard in case they heard those not their own. By now they were all able to do so instantly. And that was why, at the moment, Marlene found herself instantly held against the wall, with three different pairs of flippers restraining her.

"Oh come on, don't you guys ever get tired of doing that?" She asks as they release her sheepishly.

"Sorry Marlene, just doing our job." Apologizes Private.

"Egh." Says Rico. Kowalski just nods. He wasn't very close to Marlene; she was more of a friend whom he could make small talk with once in a while, but nothing more. Skipper walks up to Marlene and gives her a sarcastic look.

"Don't you ever get tired of coming in without authorization?" He throws back. Marlene grimaces.

"Yeah, good one." She mutters, "But come on, I just stopped by to ask if you knew anything about the eagle that settled on the building beside ours."

"Affirmative." Replies Kowalski unable to keep the smugness form his voice at how well informed he was. Marlene looks at him not at all surprised.

"Well, I was just wondering if you guys wanted to come with me to say 'Hi'. She must be very lonely up there by herself, so…I don't know, maybe you guys could offer to help her out." She states with a smirk. Skipper's beak twitches as he remembers the little nursery job she had left up to them last time.

"Negatory Marlene." He says turning her so that she faced back to the door, "We have no intentions on taking on another little prissy welcoming parade of yours. Besides, I already have Kowalski as a look-out in case the mother's a spy." Marlene digs her heels onto the ground as Skipper tries to push her out the door.

"Wait? A spy?" She asks incredulously, "Why would an eagle want to spy on you?" She crosses her arms ignoring Skipper's attempts to intimidate her by stepping up closer.

"Classified." He replies bringing his face close to hers. She could feel herself loosing some ground and she didn't like it. She stays erect while Skipper keeps talking.

"And we won't be going anywhere near that momma bird. She could be dangerous, so I suggest that you stay away too."

"Yeah?" Asks Marlene trying to show some authority in her voice, "Well, I have a direct view from my pond and I can tell you, that bird is no spy."

"Listen here Marlene, not-"

"A direct view you say?" Cuts in Kowalski. Marlene looks over Skipper's shoulders at him, surprised at his question.

"Yeah, the building she's on is right in front of my pond…why?" Kowalski looks meaningfully at Skipper before he answers. Skipper raises his eyebrow realizing what Kowalski meant. He nods his head quickly in approval, something that, though he tried to hide, Marlene was still able to pick up. Kowalski smiles and looks back at Marlene.

"Perhaps I could set up camp at your habitat to study it for a bit…" his answer falters as he sees Marlene's expression, "…just until the egg hatches of course." He finishes nervously. Marlene seems skeptical, but she also didn't want to let a friend down. With a sigh she agrees.

"Fine," she mutters, "but you better not make a mess or obsess over this okay?" Kowalski nods enthusiastically.

"I promise that my presence will be 100% unobtrusive." He replies as he gathers up his telescope and some gadgets from his table making a loud racket in the process. Marlene rolls her eyes and leads the way out of the penguin's lair, this was, after all, typical Kowalski stuff; she was sure that it wouldn't be anything special. Kowalski follows behind, realizing that this was the perfect opportunity to carry out his plan.

* * *

"Okay, so I guess you can just set your things over there." Says Marlene as she points to a cubby on her wall. Kowalski places everything carefully in it, glad to finally get rid of the heavy weight.

"Thank-you Marlene, I'm very grateful of your consent to have me here." Kowalski replies. He didn't know what else to say, so he felt that perhaps a 'thank-you' would be good. Marlene nods, still a bit iffy on the whole having-Kowalski-stay-over thing.

"So…umm, how long will this take?" She asks trying to keep from showing how awkward she felt. Kowalski, luckily, was too busy putting his telescope back together to really notice how tense she stood.

"It should only take about…well, the average eagle egg takes about 40 days to hatch…" He turns in time to see Marlene gasp in horror, "but I don't know how long this egg has been here, so it might be less than that." He says quickly. Marlene composes herself, and beckons around.

"Oh, okay then, well…if you need anything I'll be in my pond, and umm…help yourself to anything if you want." She says stepping out of the cave. Kowalski listens amused; he had never seen Marlene act so uncomfortable. He chuckles to himself as he adjusts his telescope again and takes it outside. What was it about studying an eagle that made her so nervous?

After several hours of intense investigation, and what seemed to be something completely unrelated to his job, Kowalski set out back to the base. Marlene watches him as he packs up all of his things trying to make them as compact as possible.

"You know…you can leave your things here if you want." She says once she figures out what he was doing.

"Oh," Kowalski smiles in relief as he sets his things back down again, "thank-you Marlene." He says. Marlene smiles at him too, though she mostly did it for the sake of not being rude. She still felt awkward, though she wasn't sure why. Kowalski stands waiting for her to reply or to do something, after all she was just standing there smiling in an uncomfortable, weird way.

"So umm…I will be leaving now…" he says as he starts edging towards the door.

"Oh, right," says Marlene laughing nervously, "well, have fun with your…stuff that you do." she finishes lamely. What _did _Kowalski do? Wasn't he like, some sort of inventor science guy? All she could really draw from him was that he always had a clipboard or notepad at the ready, assorted gadgets that made no sense, and an infinite list of words she couldn't understand.

Kowalski nods and leaves her cave, confused at her behavior. Once he was gone Marlene smacks her forehead. What was wrong with her? There was no reason to feel awkward around Kowalski. Surprisingly he had stuck to his promise and she hadn't been at all annoyed by his stay. Still, he would just be there and focus entirely on his job, barely even acknowledging that she was there. She was the kind of otter that liked to know what was going on, who couldn't quite figure out what to do when she wasn't talking, so how was she supposed to act around him if all he did was…be there? She shakes her head, trying to clear it.

"Okay Marlene, you're just being paranoid." She tells herself, "Sure, he's quiet and, smart, and…Kowalski (was there a better way to describe him?), but he'll just be here for a few days, nothing to worry about. It's not like he's keeping watch over you sleeping like last time."

Marlene smiles, feeling slightly better. She sits on the edge of her bed, sighing deeply. The gadgets that Kowalski had used were still on the cubby on the wall. She gets up and begins to look through them. Drawings of the eagle…they were actually pretty good, some notes on a note pad that she wasn't interested enough in reading, the telescope, some odd papers with lots of writing she didn't care about, and a bunch of obviously home made gadgets. Nothing terribly exciting, she wondered what he found so interesting about all of this. She yawns and walks back to her bed. Kowalski sure was a strange one.

Perhaps tomorrow she could go visit the eagle, so what if Skipper had told her not to? He wasn't the boss of her…as much as he acted like it at times. She turns over and stares at her ceiling. It was so quiet now that Kowalski was gone. He hadn't made much noise, but somehow the place now seemed very empty without the constant ruffle of papers and the scribbles of pencils. Still, she was used to being alone.

But…now that she thought about it, it was actually sort of nice to have Kowalski over, he didn't do anything interesting, or…or do anything much besides write things down but he was someone else in the room, but…but he was someone else besides her, even if he wasn't much. She probably only felt awkward because he was by himself, when there was usually someone else from his group to fill in on the talking part. That was sure to be it. Marlene settles down on her bed and closes her eyes. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all.

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A bad cliffhanger, I know, but I promise a good story :P To all of you Julien fans out there, there will be some of him in the next chapter :D Review! you know you want to, I'm open to suggestions and criticism 8)


	2. Ideas

Second chapter on the go. I would like to thank Blouper for this, Blouper this story goes to ya! And to all of you who have stopped yourselves from shooting me the "Anti Marski" hatemail, thanks for holding back XD To all of you who reviewed, *sniff* thanks, i was bracing myself for the worst, but i'm glad to know you guys liked it :P On with the show!

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Ideas

Marlene wakes up to the sound of ruffling paper. She sits up startled and her eyes come to a stop at Kowalski's silhouette against a single lit lamp. He stood by a table he seemed to have brought in sometime, fixing up some papers and scribbling things down quickly. She waits for him to say something. Kowalski doesn't even seem to realize she's awake so she decides to make her self know. If he was going to intrude her home she was definitely not going to let him get away with it.

"What are you doing here?" There, that was short, sweet, and demanding. Kowalski turns around confused, squinting a bit as he tries to make her out in the darkness.

"Oh, my apologies Marlene," he says, "it wasn't my intention to disturb you. I'm getting a few things ready for…my experiment." It's now Marlene's turn to be confused.

"Right now?" She asks skeptically. Kowalski nods slowly.

"I had to run a few nocturnal observations and then finish some notes and sketches." He gathers some papers behind him and keeps them behind his back, something that Marlene would have usually found suspicious, but at the moment she was still rolling his words over in her mind.

"A few _nocturnal _observations?" She asks taken aback, "As in, while I was sleeping?" Kowalski nods, but when he sees Marlene's expression he realizes that perhaps he would have been better off not answering.

"You were here…all night…you were-"Marlene seemed to be having a hard time not throwing something at him. It was dark and he was still watching the eagle? What was so interesting about it for Pete's sake? And while she was sleeping in the room! (She hoped she didn't snore anymore) So maybe he _was _taking this too far. And how had she not noticed when he came in? And how had _he _dared come in the middle of the night without permission? She takes a deep breath to steady herself before she does something rash, like kick him out gadgets and all.

"Umm…Kowalski, listen, when I ummm, agreed to let you come over I didn't, well, I didn't think that you would also come here so late…" Kowalski slants his head to the side.

"Oh, I hadn't considered any specifications in permitted times, but if that is what you prefer, then if you will give me a list of said curfew I promise to keep to it no matter the cost." Marlene shakes her head, if she understood correctly than he was…apologizing in a way?

"No, no, just…next time if you could give me a warning, that'd be great." Wait, wasn't she supposed to tell him _not _to come in at night again? _Good job Marlene…_

"Thank-you Marlene." Kowalski smiles "I should have a list of possible timings at the ready for you by today at 1200 hours."

"Oh, no that's, you don't need to do that," Marlene rushes to reply, "just, you know, tell me before you come." She smiles at Kowalski and he smiles back.

Her eyes adjust to the bright light and she can make him out better. Despite the fact that it was so late he still seemed to be wide-awake. His outline against the light made him seem like some sort of glorified hero that she had seen in movies. She could imagine him, sword in hand, ready to run into battle. She blinks and the image is gone, leaving behind plain old Kowalski in its place.

"If that's what you prefer." He replies, interpreting her silence as a dismissal. He tucks some papers beneath his wings and toboggans out of the room. Marlene slowly follows behind him and sees that the sun is only coming up the horizon. She leans against the wall and watches him jump swiftly out of her habitat and disappear completely behind the wall.

* * *

After Kowalski left, Marlene was unable to go back to sleep so she decided to start an early morning. She brushed her fur, finished her morning routine laps around her pond, and then she made sure that her fur was extra warm and dry after a long time of sun bathing on her rock.

She ate a few clams and once she had brushed the shell bits off of her she set out to check on the penguins. All the while she had not heard from them, or seen them come out to exercise, so she figured that she might go find out what was going on (they were her friends after all). She enters the base and sees something that she doubts she will ever get to see again.

The penguins were running around frantically, Skipper barking out orders to them as they packed things and ran to get more. In the corner, seemingly oblivious to the sight before him sat Kowalski reading the morning paper and jotting down notes.

"Remember to pack some of that tuna, and don't forget a barf bucket, I don't want to remind you how long it took to erase that smell last time. Private, no candy!" Skipper walks to his suitcase on the floor and jams a few lethal-looking weapons in it. Private sneaks a very candy-like square in his suitcase, looking over his shoulder at Skipper. Rico holds up a few different dresses for his doll to choose from.

"Get some blankets, lock the door, and bring some toothbrushes!"

Marlene walks up to Skipper.

"Make sure to get-Marlene!" Skipper glares as Private and Rico jump on her. Kowalski, who had seen her come in, sits and watches as she struggles against their grip.

"Hey, back up!" Marlene pulls her arm from their flippers and they stand looking at her sheepishly "come on, you guys know me, why do you always do that?" Private opens his beak to answer but is cut off by Skipper.

"And you know us." He says as he crosses his flippers, "So then why do_ you _always creep in here without warning?" Marlene glares back. Weren't they friends? _She_ didn't do this to them when they came into her home.

"Hey, I just came here to find out what's going on, the zoo's about to open and you guys haven't done your morning exercises yet."

"Why that's-"

"We're going back to the Base" cuts in Private. Skipper looks at him.

"Oh, sorry." He mumbles looking down.

"What Base?" asks Marlene.

"Clas-"

"The one we went to while we were chicks" Peeps up Private. Skipper nods to Rico who smack Private over the head. Private rubs his head looking down guiltily.

"Why?" Gasps Marlene. Skipper glares at Private before he answers.

"That's classi-"

"There's a fighting competition that they have been invited to." Jumps in Kowalski. Skipper smacks his forehead and walks away. Marlene looks at Kowalski.

"They?"

Kowalski gives her a small smile.

"I'm not the best when it comes to combat; this seems to be only for the…especially privileged." He hands her a sheet of paper with writing on it that she didn't understand.

"Uhu, because I can read." She mutters.

"Oh, right" Kowalski takes the paper from her and clears his throat, "In the search for recruits of a new and important mission, I, Commander South, have placed forth a competition that will enable you, Skipper, to try out for a spot in a temporary crew composed of only the best fighters in the academy, past and present. Come ready to intake on the new operation instantly and be sure to know your material. Tryouts will be held at The Base. Those who manage to pass the test will be rewarded not only with the prestige that this operation shall give, but will also be entitled to a few of our most advanced military implements to choose from. I hope to see you soon, and I bid you good luck, Commander South."

Kowalski looks at Marlene as he says the last part and she frowns.

"You're not invited?" She asks. He shakes his head and goes back to sit on his chair, and though she tries, she can't see his expression. Private looks at him sadly, looking at the invitation he and Rico held.

"Perhaps they just missed your name." He says trying to cheer him up.

"Erg." Says Rico. Skipper walks to him and is about to say something but Kowalski shakes his head quickly.

"Not to worry, after all, now that I don't have to go I can be certain that I will not miss one single part of the mother eagle's incubation process." He smiles to himself, obviously cheered up.

_Well, at least he doesn't mope. _Marlene thinks, looking at his expression. Skipper seems to also be assured by Kowalski's sudden reaction, so assured in fact that he gets back to the matter at hand; Marlene.

"We'll be leaving in about an hour. So, can I trust you to keep out of trouble while we're gone?" He asks, turning to face her. Marlene scowls. What? Did she have "vulnerable" written across her forehead?

"I'll try." She replies sarcastically, turning back towards the door. As she turns to leave she hears Skipper's whispered command.

"Keep an eye on her Kowalski, I trust you to maintain order for me." She resists the urge to turn back and give them a piece of her mind only because she wants to hear Kowalski's reply.

"Oh, I think she can handle things on her own."

* * *

Marlene ponders as she walks. So Skipper and the others were going away without Kowalski. Why would they do that? Of course, prestige and more weapons sounded exactly like the kind of thing that Skipper would want, and Kowalski didn't seem to be objecting so much to this. But still…why would they want to leave?

And what academy were they speaking of? More importantly, what had Skipper meant by "Can I trust you to stay away from trouble"? She wasn't weak, or defenseless. Well, at least from what she had heard, Kowalski didn't consider her to be that way.

She walks back to her habitat and was about to go in when she hears an all too familiar voice.

"No, no, this is wrong. Very, very, wrong. I'm supposed to be chasing you, and you are supposed to be letting me tag you. Now stand over there and pretend to be running away." Marlene looks up at the zoo clock. Only about an hour and fifteen minutes until the zoo opened; she had enough time for a short visit. She walks to the lemur habitat and comes into another strange sight; Maurice and Mort were running in place,Mort looking gleeful and Maurice tired. Julien runs to Mort and taps him on the shoulder.

"Tag, you are it!" He laughs, "Not 'it' it of course, because that's me, but you are the 'it' loser." Julien looks down at Mort who doesn't seem to mind this speech at all, and even seems to be enjoying the attention he's getting from Julien.

"I like being it." He says smiling adorably. Marlene walks up to them.

"What are you doing?" She asks puzzled. She takes a second to admire the fact that here she didn't have to worry about any psychotic penguins taking her down.

"Why, you silly otter," Replies Julien, "we are playing 'Tag', only I added my own betterfying twist to it. Instead of nobody ever winning, I always win, and everyone else loses! Which is adequate. So why don't you join the losers over there and make with the not running?" Marlene takes another second to remind herself that the animals here seemed to have no sense in them.

"Yeah, I don't think so." She replies backing away, "I have lots of things to do, so maybe some other time." Julien smiles at her like a teacher reminding a kindergartener not to wear his pajamas to school.

"But since I, the king of all that I survey, and even that wich I don't, have told you to play with us, you must do it. Everyone knows that." Marlene raises an eyebrow.

"Right, well, I'm still leaving." She turns to leave but stops when she feels a slight tug on her leg. She looks down and sees Mort clinging to it.

"Please?" He asks her, his eyes getting impossibly bigger, "Please?" She rolls her eyes; did he really expect her to fall for it? She looks down at Mort again to give him her final 'no' but she's stunned by the size of his eyes and the sadness in them. _Don't do it Marlene…_

"Fine." _Brilliant._

"Yeah!" Exclaims Mort, spreading out his arms. Marlene scowls, internally kicking herself. Well, it was just a game, how bad could it be?

"All right, since the otter is new she can be it." Declares Julien, "Marlene, you can try to chase Mort and Maurice, but if you come after me you must run in extra-super-duper-slow motion."

Marlene stares at him. Was he for real?

"Why? That's the whole point of Tag."

Julien smiles self-importantly.

"Yes, but I am royalty, and us royal people must never rush to do things, that's why we have slaves-I mean, subjects." Maurice glowers but Julien pretends not to notice and instead jumps excitedly with his arms in the air.

"Okay, is everyone ready to lose?" He asks. A high-pitched squawk sounds around the zoo. Julien lowers his arms and looks at them confused.

"Ehh, I don't speak shrilly, screamy language, so was that a yes, or a proclamation of how great I am?"

"King Julien that wasn't us," replies Maurice, "that must have been that eagle above us." He points to a far off figure in the sky that goes to perch on a nearby nest. Marlene smiles remembering what she had planned on doing that day.

"Hey guys, why don't you come with me to meet her?" She asks the lemurs. Julien laughs.

"Marlene," He says with a patient voice," I do not have the time to go around stunning commoners with my charming looks. If that screamy bird wants to see me she will have to make an appointment." Marlene blinks. Was he always this conceited? Although, maybe she could make it work to her advantage. She shrugs her shoulders and places her face with a crestfallen look.

"Well if that's what you want, because after all, she really wanted to meet you. She mentioned something about not being able to wait to greet, what was it she called you? Oh, yes, 'the handsomest lemur beyond imagining'." She begins to walk away letting her words sink in.

"Hmm…perhaps I can be allowing this bird with just one glimpse of my gorgeous kingly features." Replies Julien. Marlene hides her smug smile as she turns.

"Great! I'll go get some welcoming gifts and than we can meet here in a few minutes all right?" Maurice nods and waves to her as she leaves.

* * *

Kowalski goes to Marlene's habitat to warn her that he would be coming over in a few minutes to begin his research. He knocks on the wall, which he assumed was something he should do, but gets no answer. Worried, he steps in and finds the place empty. He gets his notepad out and does what automatically comes to his mind; he begins an analysis.

_No sign of a struggle, _he writes, _Assuming that there was no unusual behavior from subject I suspect that she might just be visiting a friend, however, it is exactly those two facts that lead me to believe that she has been kidnapped. Possibilities of such occurrence, 6.7%; dangerously high. _He reads over what he wrote and takes another look around. Where could she be? His eyes come to rest on a corner of the room.

Resting above the table, he sees his telescope. _A quick glance wouldn't hurt,_ he thinks, _and maybe it will help me find Marlene_. He goes to it and places his eye to the lens. He sees the nest with the eagle on it sleeping. He smiles to himself, things seemed to be going to perfection, and with Skipper about to leave he'll finally be able to maybe interview the eagle.

Movements on the building's stairs draw his attention. He readjusts the telescope, focusing it on the spot of disturbance. A small brown shape was climbing the stairs, a wrapped basket on hand. Below it, there were three more shapes, two of them carrying the tallest of them. Kowalski rubs his eyes and cleans the lens before looking through the telescope again. Was that really…Marlene! What was she doing?

Kowalski runs out of the habitat and rushes to get to them; there was no time to go get the others, he doubted whether he had enough time. He should have warned them earlier that eagles were very territorial, and dangerous.

* * *

Phew, finally a good cliffhanger. Sorry, i just love placing some sort of tension at the end of every chapter. Will Kowalski get there on time? And is the eagle really in love with Julien? Find out, in chapter 3 :Hallucinations.


	3. Hallucinations

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Are any of you feeling the Marski love yet? No? Yes? Well, which ever one you said (except maybe if you answered pancakes) I've got a whole new chapter that will give you some more so that those who answered "no" will say yes, those who said "yes" will say "YES!", and those who answered "pancakes" still won't get any, but they'll have probably forgotten about them enough to be able to answer my question.

Speaking of pancakes, Blouper; once, twice, three times THANKS!!! (don't ask me what that has to do with pancakes...)

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Hallucinations

The zoo will open in approximately an hour; he had to act quickly, not only to save his friends, but also to get them back in time.

Kowalski toboggans through the zoo's main path. He gets to the gate and realizes that it's still locked. With nothing else to do he begins climbing over it, hoping no one would take notice.

Hiding rapidly behind a trashcan, he looks around the city for the building on which the nest stood. Luckily it was close up; he slides to it and looks up at the stairs. Marlene was almost to the top, and the lemurs, which were the closest to the bottom, were already too far up to hear him.

Kowalski climbs up to the edge of a nearby dumpster and from there jumps to the edge of the stairs. Swinging himself up he back-flips into the rail and begins climbing up the stairs as fast as he can. He looks up; they still seemed so far away. He thinks about calling to them but he discerns they were too far up and that the city noises would drown out his voice. He sees Marlene climb over the edge of the roof. Desperately, he pushes himself to go faster. He had to make it.

Marlene looks up at the grand piece of architecture before her. She had to admit that it was very impressive. Sitting upon a pile of metal bars sat the eagle's nest. The bars were heaped one upon another, the ones at the top ending in a "V" shape. The nest itself was made up of many different things; ripped clothes, soda cans, crumbled paper, shredded pieces of mattresses, and other unrecognizable things, all arranged together into a bowl-shaped container. She looks around at the rest of the apartment's roof and sees a few scattered feathers littering its surface, along with some small fish bones.

She begins climbing on the metal, using one paw to hang on to the bars and the other to hold her gift basket. She couldn't help smiling as she climbed up; she was about to meet a new friend. Maybe this one would be someone she could be close to, whom she would be able to talk and joke with. She plans-out what to say as she climbs.

What would be good? Maybe: "Hello there. I'm Marlene." Not very original, but it was the only thing she could think of. She wondered what Skipper would do when he found out she had done this. Her mouth twists into a smug smile. She'd show him.

Her paw feels a difference as she grabs onto the edge of the nest. It was surprisingly soft and warm. She pushes the basket up on her side and sets her face on a bright smile to greet her new friend.

The eagle was big. Very big. Her 'hello' gets stuck in her throat as her eyes take on the large bird before her. She hadn't seemed that big from the telescope. Marlene realizes that the eagle was breathing too deeply and slowly, and that its eyes were closed. It was sleeping.

Its white eyelids blended in with its head, which was snowy-white from the neck up. The rest of it was a rich brown that made her beak seem even more vibrant yellow. Marlene stands in awe, not even noticing when Julien climbs over the ledge.

"Here I am!" He exclaims loudly, "You can now commence with the beholding of me." Marlene snaps out of her stupor and puts her finger to her lips.

"Shh!" She snaps pointing at the eagle. Julien glares at her childishly, placing his hands on his hips.

"You do not "shh" me. Only I can shush myself, and even I don't allow me to do that." Marlene puts her paw over his mouth, ignoring his protests.

"Can't you see she's sleeping?" She snaps. Julien looks at the eagle more closely.

"Ohhh." He says nodding his head expertly, "I know exactly what to do." He jumps off of the nest, disappearing from sight. Marlene looks over the edge, wondering what he had in mind. Julien runs to Mort who had a large object on his small arms. Marlene gasps as she realizes what it is.

"Wait!" she scream-whispers, knowing that it would be useless to yell loudly. Julien doesn't hear her and presses a button on the boom box. Loud music erupts from it and Julien begins to dance. Marlene stands in horror and turns to look at the eagle. Its eyes snap open, showing dark brown pupils that focus sharply on her. Marlene ignores the jagged shivers that travel down her spine and she forces back a scream, instead setting her face on what she hoped was a warm smile.

"H-hello." She says holding out her paw, "I'm Marlene, and I just-"

Marlene falls backwards as the eagle swoops up into the air. She lands painfully on her back.

"Yes! Now the party has really started!" yells Julien dancing along to the music. Marlene stares wide-eyed at the eagle. It seemed to be flying higher and higher up. Julien looks at Marlene.

"Hello! You are supposed to be partying. Nobody likes party-poopers!" Marlene ignores him, watching the eagle's course through the air.

"Marlene, you are very much being the pooper of parties right now!" yells Julien trying to pull her up.

The eagle finally stops going up and hangs in the air for a second before angling down, plummeting quickly towards them. Marlene screams and gets up, hastily shoving Julien aside. Julien gets up huffily and stomps towards her but he falls down again as a quick blast of air goes by him. Marlene runs faster, her heart beating rapidly. She could hear the eagle getting closer.

Marlene feels the air in her lungs leaving her; her legs seemed to not be listening to her anymore. She falls to the ground, closing her eyes. She hopes that the eagle was flying too high up to reach her, and if it wasn't, then Marlene hoped she would live at least.

Something hits her on the side, though it wasn't as painful as she had expected. She opens her eyes and finds Kowalski's face only inches from hers. He doesn't seem very happy, his beak was twisted into a scowl and his eyes were narrowed in fury.

"Didn't Skipper tell you not to come?" He yells. She looks up at him unable to think of an answer. She hears a loud shriek and looks over Kowalski to find that the eagle was coming at them again.

"You can lecture me later." She says pulling him out of the way. Kowalski turns and dives away. He stands with his flippers out in front of him searching for the threat. The eagle turns and charges at him again, her claws reaching for him. Kowalski jumps into the air and lands on her back. He holds onto her feathers, trying to stop her.

Marlene looks around for the lemurs. Maurice was already running to the stairs, his hands out in front of him. Mort was curled into a tight ball, rocking on the ground. Julien was standing calmly in spot inspecting his fingernails. She looks back at Kowalski who was covering the eagle's eyes. Marlene realizes that Julien was right in the eagle's path. She runs to him and shoves him to the side, turning in time to feel the eagle collide against her painfully. Marlene, Kowalski, and the eagle all go tumbling.

They land on the floor twisted in awkward, scrambled positions. Marlene pulls her leg out from underneath the bird's back and, ignoring a sharp throbbing on her side, helps Kowalski up. The eagle flips over by kicking her legs in the air. She seemed even angrier than before, the once rich brown feathers now covered in rust and dirt. Marlene and Kowalski begin to back up.

"N-n-now, listen here, umm, Mrs. Eagle," Marlene begins, hoping to appease the creature, "we only came here to-to welcome you to the area." The eagle seems to be paying attention. She nods her head, signaling that she should go on. Marlene looks up at Kowalski for help, but he just looks at her crossly. Marlene breathes deeply and gulps, facing the gigantic bird again; she could probably have her for a snack if she wanted to.

"Umm, you see, I, well, we- we just felt that you might like to get to know us and maybe we could talk. And-and we really don't mean you or your egg any harm. Really." The eagle lowers her wings, bending her head to their level. Marlene relaxes, feeling that the danger is over.

"Hey guys! Guess what I just found!"

Marlene, Kowalski, and the eagle all turn to see Julien in the eagle's nest. In his hand he proudly held up the eagle's egg.

"It's my new JJ! Finally, a heir to the throne has been found!" The eagle faces them again, her eyes once again furious.

"Wait!" Kowalski tries to hold her back but the eagle was too quick, she grabs onto Julien with her sharp claws and begins pulling him up into the air. Kowalski jumps and hangs onto Julien's leg.

"Help!" screams Julien frantically. Kowalski flips in the air and once more gets on the eagle. In an effort to get him off, Mrs. Eagle begins to do a series of turns and flips in the air. Julien screams loudly, letting go of the egg in his fear. Marlene sees the fragile egg fall through the sky and runs to it. She stretches out her arms in front of her, looking up in hopes of catching it. The egg falls neatly in her paws, not a single crack on it.

Marlene smiles but her success laughter gets suck in her throat as she feels only air beneath her. Her stomach bursts in uncomfortable butterflies as she falls, making her feel like throwing up. The air whistles past her, and, remembering what she held in her arms, Marlene clutches on tightly to the egg, trying to protect it with her body.

_Kowalski saw Marlene nearing the edge and couldn't help gasping in dread. He grabbed a handful of feathers from the eagle's belly and plucked them out, knowing that it would hurt. The eagle had shrieked and gone down to the floor again. Julien fell to the side screaming all the while. They head a loud cry and turned to see Marlene disappear, the egg in her arms. Both Kowalski and the eagle scrambled up quickly towards the building. They looked down and saw nothing. The alley was empty; there was no one there, no otter or egg in sight. _

"Marlene!" calls Kowalski. The eagle also lets out a shrill screech that echoes through the passageway, the sound of it so sad and broken that Kowalski couldn't help but feel sorry for her. The eagle swoops down and begins searching for her lost egg, all the while repeating her piercing call. Kowalski jumps down into the stairs, diving from rail to rail not caring if it was dangerous or not. Halfway there he meets an out of breath Maurice sitting on a stair.

"Maurice! Have you seen Marlene?" He asks.

Maurice gasps and shakes his head, unable to answer anything else. Kowalski nods and begins flipping down the rails again. He gets to the dumpster and lands on its lid, slamming it down on the way. He stands on it looking around anxiously. The eagle flies around too, looking for her egg. They both search and go around, looking closely at the ground and at the surrounding areas to no prevail.

Kowalski begins to grow frustrated and he curls his flippers into fists, letting out an angry growl. Whether it was to himself, or the eagle or to the entire world he didn't know, but he did know that this was completely illogical. How could Marlene have just disappeared?

The eagle stops flying and sits on the stairs, grapping her sharp claws on the rail. Resignation fills her eyes as she looks up at him. He recognizes the frustration, anger, and helplessness that he too was feeling at the moment reflected in her eyes. He noticed, though, that there was something else in them, something that, though he was close to, he still hadn't experienced. It was a dead look that he had only seen few times in his life.

Lost hope.

The eagle spreads out her wings and flies into the air. Kowalski watches as she leaves the alley, getting smaller and smaller in the sky. He opens his beak to call her back, but no words come to him. What could he say, when he himself had no idea what to do or whether there was any hope?

Kowalski sighs and goes to lean against the trashcan. How would he explain this to Skipper? How would he ever find Marlene? And _where _was she? He rubs his temple with his flippers; he could feel a headache developing. He hoped desperately that she wasn't hurt. He would never be able to live with himself if he ended up responsible for her...no, Marlene couldn't be dead. The possibilities of that were...all pointing towards it, but he knew that she wasn't dead. She couldn't be dead. He cringes at the word, how could he have let this happen? He had to find her, whatever it took. Groaning anxiously he sits on the ground, feeling all the while that perhaps this _was_ a lost cause.

"Marlene where are you?" He mutters looking around the empty valley. No answer- not that he had expected-

"Psst! Kowalski!" He looks up and sees Marlene peeking out of the dumpster.

"Marlene?"

"Is she gone? Did the eagle leave?"

Kowalski nods, barely noticing that he was doing so. Maybe he had finally lost his mind and this was all just some crazy hallucination he was having.

Marlene climbs out of the dumpster and brushes trash off of her. A very unpleasant odor reaches him and he holds back the urge to throw up. Marlene grimaces at his expression and begins cleaning up something in her arms. Kowalski stands and realizes that she still had the egg. Maybe this was just a sick and twisted dream that he was having, soon there would be another giant calculator coming at him like last time.

Julien walks down the stairs with Maurice and Mort behind him carrying the boom box. Julien walks up to them and sniffs Marlene.

"Oh, gross! You smell like Mort! Maybe even worser." Julien pinches his nose with his fingers, trying to block out the smell. Marlene glowers, but otherwise ignores the comment. She continues to pick the trash off of the egg, being especially thorough. Julien notices the egg in her arms and shudders, stepping back a few steps. Kowalski looks at her and then at Julien. He blinks as he looks at them.

"Am I dreaming?" He asks.

What a ridiculous situation, Marlene taking garbage off of an eagle's egg, Julien telling her that she stinks, Maurice and Mort holding onto a boom box in an alley, Julien shuddering at the sight of an egg, and he, Kowalski, standing in the mist of it all like a nitwit.

Kowalski feels the scenario in front of him sink in and he begins to laugh. He knew that he was on the edge of insanity as soon as he heard the hysterical laughs burst from him but he couldn't stop. Marlene looks at him confused and then does the only thing she could think of. She slaps him across the face. It obviously hurt, she hadn't meant to hit so hard, but Kowalski doesn't object. He stops laughing and looks at her again.

"That hurt." He says casually. She nods her head. Kowalski nods back and stands still for a few seconds. His features change from bemused to thoughtful. Julien, Maurice, and Mort back away from him.

"I haven't woken up, which means that I'm awake." He says. Marlene keeps staring at him. She hadn't realized what a nutcase Kowalski really was.

Kowalski continues muttering to himself. Marlene leans in closer to catch what he's saying.

"So if this isn't a dream and I am really awake than that must mean-"

Kowalski looks up suddenly.

"We have to get back to the zoo!" He exclaims. Marlene's eyes go wide as she realizes that he's right. They both turn at the same time and begin to run towards the zoo. Marlene turns to the lemurs.

"Guys! We have to get back! Hurry!" Maurice and Mort begin their slow approach to them, the boom box holding them back. Julien walks in an aggravatingly slow pace. Marlene runs back to them and pulls on Julien's arm.

"Come on Julien! We have to go now!" Julien slaps her hand away.

"I am the king and will go when I decide to go. If you are wanting me to go faster than you shall have to carry me." His eyes glow with mischief as he sees her expression. She sees Kowalski taking the boom box from Mort and placing it on his shoulders. It seemed like heavy work, but as always Kowalski wasn't complaining.

She turns back to Julien who still had a large smile on his face. She sees people already crowding around the zoo gates. _Only one thing to do Marlene…_

"Julien so help me, you will run to that zoo or else I'll make sure that you never enter it again." She holds her free fist up to his face threateningly. Julien raises his eyebrow arrogantly.

"Are you trying to threaten the king?" He asks amused. Marlene feels the heat rise to her head.

"Listen here you conceited gray ball of fur, I have been attacked by an eagle and fallen in a dumpster full of many more things than I will ever want to be near to, so if you think that i am merely threatening you than I have news for you." She pulls his face closer to hers and narrows her eyes. Julien wrinkles his nose at how she smells which only fuels her anger more.

"If you don't get in that zoo in the next three seconds i will personally make sure that you end up as eagle snack nip you obnoxious, over spoiled, ridiculous lemur!" Julie holds his arms up in front of him and steps to the side laughing nervously. Marlene growls.

"Oh right, yes well, I will now be deciding to go in then." He takes off into the zoo, running so quickly the humans don't even notice him as he goes by. Marlene goes to Kowalski and helps him carry the boom box with her free hand. He gives her an amused look that she decides to ignore; he had seen her mad before.

"How do we get in?" She asks him motioning to the gathering crowd at the gates.

"There's an available stroller up ahead." He points to a mother who held a pink stroller in her hands. A baby with soft brown hair sat drinking her bottle on it. The mother passes by and Marlene jumps in quickly on the bottom part, placing the egg carefully beside her. Kowalski goes back to get Maurice and Mort, shoving them in hastily. They sit in the hammock-like place and watch as the mother waits for the gates to open. Kowalski pretend scribbles some notes on his flipper and looks at them. He shakes his head and stands up.

"You need to get in on time. I'll cause a distraction while you climb through the gates. Leave the boom box here, I'll be sure to get it back." Marlene jumps up, trying to hold him back. What was he going to do? Was he out of his mind? Her paw grabs on to empty air, Kowalski was too fast. Her eyes follow him as he slides to the center of the crowd and begins waddling around. The crowd's response in instantaneous.

"Look! A penguin!"

"Oh, it's so cute!"

"Is it real?"

"How did it get out of the zoo?"

Kowalski continues waddling. He looks at Marlene and signals for her to go. She realizes that the people were too engrossed with him to really notice anything else. The crowd "ooh's" and "aww's" and she and the lemurs climb the fence. Marlene climbs more slowly since she had the egg to care for, therefore getting to see the last part of Kowalski's act. He waddles slowly to the edge of the crowd and when they were least expecting it he dives away into the street, disappearing among the traffic.

The crowd stands shocked looking for him. Marlene grips the bars tightly looking around. She spots a slight patch of black underneath a car. She falls on the zoo ground and bends her head down, looking beneath the car. Kowalski was clinging to car's floor, his flippers and feet grasping onto it. She smiles when he looks her way and he waves at her. Marlene runs back to her habitat smiling. She would be able to get to her habitat on time and later on return the egg. It had all ended well after all.

Still, something kept bugging her. Hadn't Kowalski said he couldn't fight?

Kowalski stands before Skipper. He was avoiding his gaze, looking down all through Skipper's lecture.

"Exposing yourself like that, allowing Marlene out of the zoo grounds. And Julien! I could hear that music all the way here! Perhaps I need to cancel this trip, we haven't even left and the zoo is already a mess." Skipper takes a deep breath and speaks more calmly.

"Kowalski, you can tell me right now. Should we stay here? It wouldn't be that big a deal. I myself never really liked long boat rides or airplanes."

Kowalski looks up at Skipper. It was easy to tell when he was lying. This trip was very important to him. He felt a twinge of guilt as he realizes what he was doing. Maybe he should cancel the operation. He wouldn't have anything to study anymore, not after the eagle left.

The eagle left.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Kowalski feels panic rise in him. The eagle had left. And the egg, it was still here. What was he going to do? He had to tell Skipper! But… but then what would be Skipper's reaction? Definetly not something good.

Skipper watches Kowalski, waiting for him to answer. Kowalski takes a deep breath.

"Skipper, I think you should go on that trip. I promise to have everything in order and that no inhabitant in this zoo will come to harm while I am in here." Skipper nods.

"Always knew you'd make a great leader Kowalski."

Skipper goes out to the rest of the team. They were waiting outside to hear the final decision. Kowalski follows him out.

"Boys, we're going back to the Base." Skipper tells them proudly. Private and Rico cheer, high-fiving each other. Kowalski smiles at them. He now realized what a terrible idea it had been to make those fake invitations. But it was too late now. He had to return the egg before Skipper noticed, and in order to do that he would need Skipper to leave. He could use some help from the others, but he didn't think it would be fair to pull them into this.

The team waves goodbye to Kowalski as they leave the zoo. Kowalski places on a fake smile and waves back, three stuffed penguins from the gift shop beside him. Once they were out of sight, Kowalski turns and places a fourth stuffed penguin in his place. The people begin to come into the zoo.

Kowalski goes into Marlene's habitat and watches for a minute as the people the throw fish at the fake penguins. He sighs and knocks on Marlene's wall. He had to get the egg back to the eagle somehow, and he knew that in order to do that he too would have to leave.

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And will he? Or is there something else in store that might be worse than that? Well, i'm not telling you right now, so, read the next chapter if you want to know. :P


	4. Exchanges

Yay! New chapter! Can you feel the excitement? _Crowd: YES!!! _Well, that's awesome! Now let's see what YOU have to say to it :D because, every single person that reads this is my new best friend, whether I know you or not. So, best friend, let me show you what I've written.

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Exchanges

Kowalski waits for Marlene to answer but gets no response. He knocks again, more forcefully this time, a heavy dread beginning to develop in his stomach. _Not again…_

"Hey Kowalski!"

Kowalski turns, so relieved he could have hugged her. Still, he holds back. _Too much stress is bad for the mind Kowalski. _

He smiles back at Marlene who stood dripping before him. She goes to a nearby rock and gets a towel, beginning to dry herself. She didn't smell like garbage anymore, and her fur was litter free.

"So what's up?" She asks. Kowalski clears his throat, remembering what he was there to do.

"Well…"

A human comes to the habitat. Thinking quickly, Kowalski dives inside Marlene's cave. Marlene scurries to the entrance and pretends to sit sunning herself.

"You were saying?" She says, still faking casualness. Kowalski gets as close to the edge of the cave as possible without any humans noticing him there.

"Do you still have the egg?" He asks her. Marlene nods quickly.

"Why?"

"It's imperative that I return it. Now." Marlene turns to smile at him.

"Don't worry, we can wait until the zoo closes to get the egg back to Mrs. Eagle, I'm sure she won't mind."

Kowalski shakes his head, but then realizes Marlene couldn't see him, the cave was too dark.

"No, I have to return it now. Time is of essence, the quicker I can get it back the better." Marlene tries to make him out in the dark, unconsciously scooting closer.

"Why? Did Skipper tell you to?" Kowalski manages to stop himself from shaking his head once again and answers her instead.

"Marlene, we're losing precious time here, just tell me the egg's location so I can return it." Marlene frowns and doesn't answer. She walks into the cave, not looking at him and starts rummaging through a pile of pillows on her bed. She carefully pulls out the soft brown egg. Kowalski goes to take it from her, but she pulls it back.

"I'm going with you." She states. Kowalski looks at her.

"Marlene-"

"I went to the eagle and got you in trouble, so I'm going to help you return it." Kowalski glowers.

"You're only making this more difficult than it needs to be." He replies meeting her gaze. Marlene smiles sardonically and begins leading the way out. Kowalski grabs on to her arm and tries to pull her back but she yanks it away.

"Why can't I go? It's my fault, and you seem desperate to get this thing back." Kowalski simply holds his flippers out reaching for the egg but she steps back.

"Why?" She hints. Kowalski sighs frustrated.

"This is no time for lollygagging Marlene-"

"Just tell me." Marlene cuts in. Kowalski glares at her. So this is what Skipper meant by Marlene being too obstinate for her own good. He knew from experience, though, that there was only one way to go when others had their minds set on his opposite side.

"Fine."

Marlene smirks and begins walking out again, the egg on her side. Kowalski takes the opportunity to rush forward and take it from her. Marlene gasps staring at her empty paws. She looks up and sees Kowalski running away with the egg. She didn't know that he was manipulative, when had that happened?

She chases after him, getting closer every second. Kowalski had to keep diving into different hiding spots to keep the humans from seeing him, but she could run freely wherever she wanted. Kowalski looks back at her looking surprisingly annoyed.

Marlene smiles smugly and runs faster; this was actually sort of fun. She gets just a few inches behind him; all she needed was a final push. Marlene jumps at him, not noticing the brick wall in front of her. She slams painfully into it, feeling a sharp pain on her head. She falls to the ground and sits for a few seconds, blinking in her daze. She looks for Kowalski, but he's gone. She sighs and looks around; glad that at least he hadn't seen that.

A flipper appears in front of her. Marlene looks up and finds Kowalski standing beside her, the egg held on his other flipper.

"You can come with me only as far as the nest." He tells her. Marlene grimaces and takes his flipper. How was it that he was being a jerk and a gentleman at the same time?

* * *

After quickly placing an otter doll by a rock Kowalski and Marlene set out to the nest.

Kowalski leads her farther down the main gate once he had made sure that there were no humans in their path, and begins running his flipper down the zoo wall. He stops at the edge of a brick and pulls. Marlene hides her surprise at the door he opens. He gestures for her to go first, which for some reason she found aggravating.

They go swiftly from place to place through the city, or at least he did, she simply ran after him whenever he moved. (It was amazing how much precaution he took to not be noticed; all she had done was walk down the sidewalk with a box on top of her).

They get to the building a few moments later, Marlene remembering grimly what had happened the last time she had been there. She scowls at the dumpster in front of her, heading to the stairs once more. Hearing a soft tap she turns to see Kowalski jump on the dumpster. Using it as a standing point, he flips into the air and lands neatly a few flights of stairs higher. He places the egg carefully beside him and looks at her through the rail.

Marlene scowls up at him and begins climbing the first set of stairs. She looks up and finds him back at the top of the first flight, his flipper already held out to her.

They climb up the stairs together, Marlene amazed at how patient he was of her slow pace. After climbing for a few minutes she takes the egg from him.

"My turn." She replies to his questioning look. She was determined to prove that she could be helpful. Kowalski nods and keeps walking beside her, not making any attempt at conversation. Marlene feels the silence is heavy, though Kowalski doesn't even seem to mind it. She opens her mouth to say something but stops when he turns to face her. She looks away and pretends to be blowing on the egg to polish it.

"Do you want me to carry it?"

Marlene looks at Kowalski. His flippers were stretched out towards her but he still climbed the stairs smoothly, seeming undisturbed by his awkward position. Marlene shakes her head and hugs the egg closer to her.

"I've got it." She replies. Kowalski shrugs and keeps climbing. Marlene goes over possible conversations in her head, looking for something to say. Still, Kowalski doesn't say anything.

Just when Marlene felt that she couldn't take much more of the silence, the stairs come to a stop. Kowalski takes the egg from her and jumps onto the roof. He holds his flipper out to her yet again. She takes it grudgingly; did he think she was so weak?

They walk up to the nest. Marlene bracing herself in case of another attack. When nothing happens she looks around and realizes how empty the place was. Kowalski climbs the heap of metal and feels the nest floor.

"It's cold." He says, whether to her or himself she couldn't tell.

Kowalski walks around the place, looking up at the sky occasionally. Marlene sits, hugging the egg; it was light brown with scattered speckles of dark brown.

She watches Kowalski as he conducts a few more observation; somehow he now held a notepad and pencil. She supposed that this was just typical Kowalski stuff, though she did find it a bit weird. He walks around seemingly in control, but the pace and force with which he wrote seemed to be getting more frantic. Finally Kowalski lowers his notepad, sighing as he looks at what he's written. Marlene cranes her neck and sees that most of what was written was crossed out.

"What's wrong?" She asks once Kowalski fails to tell her what was going on. He looks at her as if he had forgotten she was there. _Maybe he had…_

"The eagle seems to have left." He replies. Marlene shrugs.

"Maybe she just went to get something to eat."

Kowalski shakes his head.

"She didn't go to get food, my observations dictate she usually does that an hour before this." Marlene stands up and picks up the egg.

"Well, I'll bet she was tired of sitting on her nest and she went to, I don't know, stretch her wings-" Kowalski doesn't even wait for her to finish this time. He shakes his head again and looks down.

"Marlene, the eagle didn't leave for rations, or to stretch, or even to see the view… she left because she gave up."

Marlene stands confused.

"What?"

Kowalski takes the egg from her.

"When you fell in the dumpster, you had the egg with you. We searched for you, but you didn't show up, and there was no other place to look in. You just disappeared…"

"Well, of course I didn't show up. I was scared." Says Marlene defensively, "Did you want me to jump out and scream 'Here I am!' when that eagle would've shredded me to pieces?" Kowalski sighs, a bit of impatience showing on his face when he looks at her.

"What would you do if you lost your child?" He asks suddenly. Marlene backs a few steps, startled at the abrupt change in conversation.

"Lost my child? Why? I don't have a child." She stutters. Kowalski holds the egg up to her. Marlene looks at it. It looked so soft and smooth, and vulnerable. Inside it there was a cute little baby that would soon hatch…

"A child?" She whispers. That was it. What would she do if she lost her child? Look for it of course. But if it seemed to have just disappeared and there was no place left to look…

Kowalski nods once he saw that she got it and begins to walk away.

"Wait! Where're you going?" She calls to him. Kowalski turns around.

"I'm going to look for the mother so that I can give her back her egg. You, meanwhile, are going back to the zoo to watch over things while I'm gone."

Marlene stares at him. He was kidding right?

"What?"

Kowalski walks back to her and places his flipper on her shoulder.

"I might be gone for a while. Until I return, with the team gone, there is only one individual I can depend on to watch over things. You have to stay Marlene."

She shakes her head stubbornly.

"Hey. I'm not part of your military group you know. You can't expect me to take orders from you."

Kowalski's grip tightens on her shoulder and she tries steps back from him.

"If not you then who?" He asks. Marlene opens her mouth to answer, expecting a brilliant come back, but all that comes out is silence. _Dang! He was right._

"Fine." She grumbles, "But what about you?"

Kowalski takes his flipper from her shoulder now that he knew she would do what he told her.

"What about me?" He asks raising an eyebrow. Marlene narrows her eyes in suspicion.

"You're going on a mission all by yourself with no team to back you up in case of trouble," She states. Kowalski smiles grimly.

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, I've been training all my life." Marlene crosses her arms.

"Yeah? And if anything goes wrong?" Kowalski frowns and thinks for a few seconds.

"The odds of that are-"

"Forget the odds!" exclaims Marlene, "You might be overly cocky on this but there's still a chance of this going wrong even if they're slim. You can't go by yourself."

Kowalski steps closer, almost intimidating.

"What are you suggesting?" He asks, distrustful. Marlene prepares herself to snap back but the words get stuck on her throat. What _was _she hinting at?

"I'm going with you." She says for a second time that day. Kowalski shakes his head.

"No." He says simply and jumps off of the nest. Marlene stomps after him. So it would be this all over again. Still, if she had managed to convince him to let her come once (_had_ she convinced him?) than she could do it again. But how? Last time all she had done was crash into a wall, not exactly the most persuasive argument in history.

Kowalski begins climbing down the stairs fairly quickly, but Marlene notices that it was actually a slow pace for him. She jumps down onto the stairs and runs to catch up to him. He keeps walking and ignores her when she turns up on his side.

"Why?"

It was a simple question. She didn't understand why he wouldn't answer it. Kowalski keeps staring straight ahead. He figured that Marlene's hate of being ignored would win over her persistence therefore she might stop talking if he didn't answer.

"So?" _Just a few more questions._

"Kowalski?" _She was bound to give up soon._

"Kowalski!" _Any minute now._

"What will Skipper think of this?"

_So maybe his calculations had been wrong. _

Kowalski stops in his tracks, knowing that there was no way out of this one. Marlene realizes that she had finally managed a break-through. She resists the urge to smile and faces Kowalski.

"Well then?" She asks. Kowalski doesn't answer and resumes walking. Marlene hates how unresponsive he is. Still, she had to get him to let her go. She couldn't allow him to go who-knew-where to maybe get himself killed. She knew that she wasn't much but if trouble arose at least she would be there to help in whatever way she could. At least to make it even. Kowalski _had_ saved her from the eagle earlier that day. She was strong and independent, Kowalski had to let her come…for his own good.

And he would, she would make sure of that.

* * *

Kowalski places the egg on a mobile incubator he had designed himself. The battery ran out fast so he had some extras saved up on a burlap sack. In it he also carried his notepad, a pencil, the feathers he had taken from the eagle during their struggle, a map, and a few of his gadgets. Not a heavy load, but he also had to carry the egg with him. He looks down at the paper he held on his flippers and places it on the table in front of him. He takes one last look around the HQ before heading out, the note left on the tables folded in half. One single word is written at the top "Skipper".

He realizes now what a bad idea it had been to send them away, but his time machine exploded every time he turned it on so he knew that there was no going back.

He takes out the map he had worked on after this entire mess started and looks at the many places he had positioned as possible places the eagle had gone to. Each was marked as a small red dot. Practically the entire map was red.

He squares his shoulders and walks out of the penguin habitat, looking back at the stuffed dolls that would take his and the team's place. Four stuffed penguins, then there would be three real ones back. Would they need a fourth doll for their next mission, or would there simply be three?

Kowalski looks back at the zoo gates; unable to believe he was doing this. He felt a cold knot in his stomach that told him this was wrong, but his mind was telling him this was, more importantly, necessary. And in Kowalski's case, the mind always wins. He dives behind a lamppost with the incubator at hand and then goes back for the burlap sack. A bus stops ahead of him and people begin to climb on board.

He holds on tightly to the sack and the incubator, hoping that he would be able to carry the two at the same time. Something begins to pull on the incubator and Kowalski turns around quickly. Marlene stood in front of him, smiling warmly, her paw on the incubator. Kowalski sighs and lets it go. Marlene hugs the machine to her and looks at the egg through the glass. She follows Kowalski onto the bus once all the humans were in and they hide beneath the first chair.

The bus takes off into the street and the two animals look back at their home, which suddenly seemed so strange and unknown to them. It was so different in the inside; there it was the home they had always felt safe in. Outside, it was just another building among the many, and they were outsiders. Marlene hugs herself and scoots closer to Kowalski. She didn't know why, but she felt better knowing she wasn't alone.

Kowalski looks at Marlene sitting beside him. Surprisingly, he too, felt glad that she had come along. Even it was for a little while. He knew he would have to send her back, whatever the cost…for her own good.

_He_ would make sure of that.

* * *

It's actually odd. I hadn't meant to end both of their thoughts on the same note, but, it somehow happened. So, dedications? As always, Blouper, because I'm not the best author, and with her i actually feel like I might be at least a good one. Knockknocktimerico, how amazing his story is just leaves me in awe. And YOU my best friend from far away that i don't know. Thanks for sticking this far :D


	5. Complications

Thank ya'll for the reviews and for keeping here, *sniff* I love ya'll! Also I especially love Blouper (the best person one can possibly be in contact with) and Knockknocktimerico (who gave me the boost I needed to get out of my writer's block), and Halfhuman123, who has got to be the biggest fan of this story. You guys are beyond awesome. *sniff* I just need a minute (their awesomeness makes me emotional, also I have a cold) so while I get myself together enjoy the new chapter :D

* * *

Complications

_Skipper,_

_As a member of your team it is my duty to inform you of any misgiving that happens. I'm sorry to inform you that_ I'm _the misgiving. The invitations were phonies, I made them myself while I was at Marlene's. My sole purpose was to be able to lead a complete research of the eagle's egg, but an unfortunate event led the eagle to leave on the same day that you did. In her haste she left her egg behind, and now, as a member of the aiding military, it is my duty to make sure she gets it back. There is an infinite list of possibilities, but I vow to complete this mission. Marlene obstinately came along, but to ensure her safety I will drop her off at another zoo where you will be able to pick her up. I estimate that you will get back in two days so until then she will stay with me. I promise to keep her from harm until I drop her off at Hoboken. If I manage to make it back I will assume full responsibility for my actions._

_Kowalski. _

Julien enters the HQ, creeping in slowly. He takes a look around before breaking out in a wide grin.

"Yes!" He exclaims, turning to face Maurice and Mort. "The silly penguins are gone from here. Sad, really, they won't be here to enjoy them not being here."

He runs to their TV and turns on the volume full blast, changing the channel to a loud action movie.

"Maurice!" He yells over the sound, "Go get me some lemon-aide with some of those cubical shaped icicles on it!"

Maurice rolls his eyes at Julien's name for ice cubes and opens the penguin's fridge. There were plenty of ice cubes, but there was only pure water. He shrugs and gets a cup from the pantry, pouring in some of the water and ice cubes into it. He goes to Julien and hands him the cup. Julien takes it without looking at him, his eyes glued to the TV. He takes one sip and spits it out, showering Mort who was sitting next to him.

"Maurice!" He snaps, "I asked for some lemon-aide, and this is just flavorless, colorless, smellerless plain old water!" He throws the cup to the side and it shatters all over the floor. Julien turns to Maurice.

"Now get me some real lemon-aide, with real lemon-adding flavor." Maurice walks wearily back to the fridge in hopes of finding something for Julien; it wouldn't do to have him "freak" on him. He doesn't find anything of help though, so instead he just sits quietly and wishes that Julien would forget all about the lemonade.

"Maurice," calls Julien in a singsong voice, "I am still awaiting the arrival of my delicious, thirst quenching, non-plain lemon-aide." Maurice sighs and goes to Julien.

"King Julien, there's no lemonade here. And I'm not sure if the penguins will be happy to know we were here." _Perhaps changing the subject would distract him._

Julien turns to Maurice and smiles at him, standing up. He loved the way he towered above the others. He places his hands on his hips and looks down at Maurice.

"Maurice, how many times must I remind you that as the king, I am allowed wherever I want to be allowed, and wherever I am allowed I am loved." He goes to the table and leans against it, noticing the letter Kowalski had left.

"Oooh!" He exclaims, "A letter! Most possibly, about how grand and wondrous I am." Mort smiles at him.

"You're the most wondrous king ever!" He says, his eyes getting wider. Julien smiles smugly but otherwise ignores him and opens the letter. His eyes scan it for a second before he hands it to Maurice.

"My eyes are tired of reading, read me the letter out loud Maurice." He says arrogantly. Maurice looks at the different drawings on the paper and clears his throat. The first was a picture of…

"Skipper" says Maurice. _Kowalski making the invitations at…_

"…Marlene's habitat…" _Kowalski going after an eagle to return …_

"…the egg…" _Marlene coming along, and Kowalski dropping her off at…_

"…the Hoboken zoo…" _Kowalski being dismissed from the team…_

"…if I manage to come back…" _Kowalski._

"Kowalski."

Julien yawns and goes back to watch TV. Maurice goes to him, the letter on his hand.

"King Julien, don't you realize what this means?" He asks urgently. Julien turns and puts his finger to his lips.

"But King Julien-"

Julien stands up again and glares at Maurice.

"Maurice," he says taking the paper from him, "if there is one thing that you must never do, it's one; distract me from watching TV because of a stupid letter and two; fail to bring me my lemon-aide. Now shuddap and carry out your job." He crumbles the paper into a ball and throws it behind him, where it rolls underneath the couch. Maurice sighs and goes once more to search for something to quiet down Julien. He was, after all, the king.

* * *

Kowalski and Marlene wait for the last of the humans to get off of the bus before they climb out of it. Marlene looks around, realizing that she had no idea where they were.

A building stood before them. It was tall and wide with windows arranged neatly over the walls, and different cut sections on it. Marlene wonders why they had stopped here. Kowalski takes her arm and pull her behind a nearby tree, once he realizes that she wasn't hiding. Marlene turns to him.

"Where are we?" She asks.

"We are at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation." He replies. Marlene keeps staring.

"Why?" She hints. Kowalski stares back at her.

"Isn't it lapalissian?" He asks. Marlene stares even more confused than before.

"Umm…English please?" _Why didn't he just speak with normal words?_

"Blindingly obvious." He answers. Marlene glowers.

"No, it isn't." Kowalski smiles at her sudden annoyance and points to the building.

"If my hypothesis is correct then the eagle came from this organization here." He replies.

Marlene looks at the building in front of her, doubting that an eagle would come from such a place; she felt she was missing something. Still, she figures it would just be better to nod along to what Kowalski said instead of hurting her head trying to figure out what he meant though.

"So how do we get in?" She asks. If they were there they would most likely go in right?

Kowalski takes out a drawing of what she assumed was the building.

"We need to get to the record's room where I hope I'll be able to find something that relates to our specific eagle." He taps a square on the drawing with the number 135, "In order to do that we'll have to disguise ourselves."

"As what?" _This can't be good…_

Kowalski smiles even wider.

* * *

Marlene shuffles a bit as she settles down in the box. It was actually astounding the way Kowalski had managed to rummage for a box big enough for both of them, and created a convincing label to place on it. Not to mention the way in which he had managed to seal the box from the inside.

She squints in the darkness at Kowalski beside her. He was sitting over a pile of papers he had shoved into the box with them and was scribbling down things onto his clipboard. She wonders how he could possibly be able to know what he was writing in this darkness.

The box suddenly begins to sway from side to side as a human lifts them up. Marlene tries to grab onto the edges to steady herself. Kowalski simply sits and waits. They hear a few voices as they are taken across the rooms.

"Yeah, it was the one with the worst chances…"

"Still might be able to track her down…"

"Hunters, you know. Must have taken it…"

"Lots of money for one now…"

Marlene listens to them unable to figure out what was going on. Not that it could matter anyway. Kowalski sits beside her, from what she could make out he was very still and he had stopped writing.

"Kowalski?" She whispers. Kowalski simply mutters a soft "shh". Marlene shrugs and imitates him, staying as still as possible. Beside her, the egg shifts a bit to the right as the box is placed on a table. Marlene hears faint rustling for a second. She squints and is able to see Kowalski beside her, his flippers surrounding the egg. Though it was dark, the sight before her still made her smile.

* * *

"Does it say who they're from?" Asks a blond lady holding up a very life-like otter doll. The doll stood with her head leaning against her shoulder and her hands clasped together in an adorable, stiff posture.

"Not a clue." Responds a man with messy brown hair that went down to his eyes, "Just says 'To Julie, in room 135, from a deep supporter of the NYSDEC.' Looks like you have a secret fan."

"Sure thing James." Laughs Julie rolling her eyes. James reaches into the box and carefully pulls out the penguin doll.

"Look at this little guy." He says chuckling. The penguin had an egg held tightly on his flippers, a small smile playing on his lips. The two humans laugh together and don't notice when the otter doll accidentally smiles too. Julie places the otter doll on her desk and stares at it happily. The man sets the penguin down beside the otter. What a nice present. They stand up together and go to the entrance.

"After you." Says the man opening the door. Julie laughs and walks out, followed by James.

The otter doll turns to the penguin doll.

"Now?" She whispers. The penguin doll shakes his head quickly.

"We just have to wait a few minutes in order to make sure they've left for sure." He mutters quietly. The otter doll scowls.

* * *

Kowalski's flippers are a blur as he taps down key after key on the computer. Marlene watches astonished at his nimbleness. After a final tap Kowalski leans back self-satisfied and turns to her smiling triumphantly.

" We're in." He says. Marlene looks at the screen. A picture of an eagle was there, settled over a large pile of metal.

"That's her!" She points, "But…where's her nest?"

"This picture was taken before she had built it." Replies Kowalski punching in a few more words. The screen changes and a picture of a deep forest takes over the screen. A short word can be seen at the bottom. Marlene leans in closer in hopes of deciphering it.

"What's that say?" She asks looking at Kowalski. She realizes now how grim he looked.

"Alaska."

Again, Marlene feels she was missing something obvious, what was the word he had used? Oh yeah, lapalissian.

"And…?"

Kowalski sighs.

"That's where they got her from."

Marlene still doesn't get it.

"So…?"

Kowalski looks at her carefully.

"It's one of my hypothesis…that she might have decided to go back to her home land."

"All the way to Alaska?"

Kowalski nods. Marlene groans. She finally got it.

"And we're going all the way there?"

Kowalski doesn't answer.

* * *

Got myself back together XD new chapter up soon, all it needs is some polishing up :D


	6. Bonds

Yes! New Chapter! *dances in crazy manner* *knocks over vase* Woops...oh well, anywho, Dedication! Blouper, no matter what you're always there, and Knockknocktimerico, you always have the kind of character that makes me forget about being sick or having a sprained ankle, To Smileas, Halfhuman, Gatorgirl, and RavenFeathersofDarkness for reviewing and making such amazing stories of themselves. *gives virtual hug* Love Ya'll!

* * *

Bonds

Marlene sits on the car seat, her eyes going nervously to the human beside her. He was a middle-aged man, with dark brown hair that was fading at the back. He was leaning heavily against the seat and his eyes stared unblinking. Or rather, his eyes were closed, but had the illusion of being open by a cleverly drawn pair of pupils. On his lap stood Kowalski. His flippers were turning the wheel and he was craning his neck in order to see the road. Marlene looks at the back seat where the incubator sat. Kowalski had gotten a bumper seat from the taxi's trunk and placed the incubator on it, the egg now safely strapped in.

Lights flash by quickly as the car speeds down the road. They had been driving for a while. The dark night sky visible through the windows. It was late, yet the city was still as alive and thriving as it had been during the day.

Marlene looks at Kowalski. How could she ask him what she had in mind? She knew that this was a tough situation, having to go all the way to Alaska to return an egg was definitely a hassle. What she wanted to know was what _he _had in mind. All through the ride he hadn't said a word, except when he opened the door for her and asked her to get in. His eyes were fixed on the road, and he hadn't once looked at her.

Something was wrong she could feel it. Although it might just be the whole scenario that was getting to him, this wasn't exactly a picnic, but still…

"Kowalski?" _That's a start…_

Kowalski's eyes dart quickly from the road to her and back. He nods at her, signaling that she had his attention.

"Umm…" _How to phrase what she wanted to say? _"Is…anything wrong?"

Kowalski keeps looking at the road. Marlene takes a deep breath, preparing to ask again, but he lets go of the wheel and jumps down onto the man's left foot, bringing the car to a neat stop. Marlene feels the urge to look out the window but she holds back, deciding to instead let Kowalski explain.

Kowalski jumps into the air, landing on the man's shoulder. He uses his flipper to wipe off the paint from his eyes. He makes sure to get every last bit of paint before he looks at her. His expression was one she had seen before; he wore it when he was trying to figure out a particularly challenging equation. Eyebrows knitted together, undecided eyes, and a deep scowl, all were present on his face. Marlene is instantly worried, but she sits up straight meets his gaze.

"What's going on?" She asks, her voice sounded dull, a monotone that made her dread his answer.

"Well," Replies Kowalski as unenthusiastically as her, "With the extensive trip ahead of us I decided that it would be a good idea to replenish our energies here and set out early tomorrow."

Marlene looks out the window, leaning her head closer to it in order to see out. Another building, one that she didn't know. She turns to Kowalski in hopes of clarification as to what this place was. Kowalski gives her a small smile.

"This is the Hoboken zoo." He replies jumping off of the chair and going to the backseat. Being very careful of keeping a good grip on it, Kowalski carries the incubator and opens the door with his beak. He turns to Marlene and motions for her to follow him out of the car. Marlene gives a final hesitant look at the taxi driver before she opens the door and steps out.

The sky was dark, with no sign of either stars or moon, yet there were plenty of lights in the city to be able to see ahead of her. The Hoboken zoo was about the same size as theirs, though its design was different. This one had large gray bricks instead of small red ones, and instead of a bell clock it had a green sign that read its name. Marlene shivers a bit in the cold breeze that blows against her. Her eyes search for Kowalski and she spots him as he puts the incubator down beside the entrance. She walks to it quickly and places her paw over it in a reassuring way. Kowalski goes back to the car to get his burlap sack. Marlene bends down closer to the incubator.

"Don't worry," She whispers to the egg, "we'll get you back to your mom soon." She hugs the incubator, feeling an odd sense of safety in its warmth.

Soft rustling makes her look up. Kowalski stood a few feet away, his face half hidden in darkness. It was hard to tell what he was feeling, but she thought she could see…regret? He walks closer and his face is fully illuminated. No sign of regret; only a placid smile in place.

Marlene stands up with the incubator in her arms. With no humans in sight she and Kowalski are able to go in through the gates unceremoniously. Marlene takes in her surroundings, a strange feeling developing in her. Beside her Kowalski walked in an expertly way, completely confident in his steps. Marlene notices a sign up front with arrows pointing in different directions.

She squints in the dark to make out the writing; luckily there were pictures beside the arrows. In the path a head of them there was an intersection, one pointed to the elephants, another to the monkeys, and the one that went straight ahead, towards which Kowalski was going, pointed to a small furry creature with a long tail and whiskers. The otters.

* * *

Marlene stands awkwardly in place, the cold making her fur rise. She rubs her arms together trying to get some warmth from the friction. She walks closer to the entrance of the box-like cave before her. The stone structure was bigger than hers, and there were stairs carved into the side that led to the roof. A large oval shaped pond lay on the side, the water looking icy and crystalline.

Soft muttering could be heard coming from the cave, Kowalski had told Marlene to wait for him outside. There was light coming from the cave, shadows moving across from time to time. Marlene feels herself becoming impatient. The wind blows and she shivers in harmony with it. How was it so cold that night?

"Marlene?"

"Marlene looks up, Kowalski stood in front of her holding a blanket out to her. Marlene takes it gratefully, smiling at him. He smiles back and steps to the side, pointing to the entrance.

"After you." He says. Marlene rolls her eyes and walks in. The cave was much like the penguin's lair. There was furniture, a working table, and a TV. In the middle of the room stood two otters smiling warmly. One of them was a milky brown about her height and the other one was about Rico's height, with fur so dark it would have blended into the night nicely. The taller of the two steps forward and hold his paw up to her.

"Pleasure to meet you Marlene," He says giving a firm handshake, "I'm Ray, this here is Elm." He points to the smaller otter who steps forward and also shakes her paw.

"Welcome to Hoboken." He nods. Marlene smiles at him, getting another nod in return. Kowalski steps up and turns to face her.

"Ray and Elm are good friends of ours; they've kindly allowed you to take up residence here until our departure."

"So… if I understood right, I get to stay here?" She asks confused. Ray and Elm laugh while Kowalski smiles.

"Precisely." He answers, "Meanwhile I will go to the penguin's habitat. They're not recruits, but we've met before." Marlene watches as he turns to leave.

"Wait!" She calls, "What time do we meet again? And where's the egg?"

Kowalski gives her a quick guilty look before he answers calmly.

"I'll come to get you tomorrow morning. I have the egg with me, I'll take care of it." Marlene frowns, something wasn't right.

"Well, I was thinking that, maybe, I could keep the egg instead?"

Kowalski fidgets as he answers.

"No, that won't be necessary; I've got it all under control…"

Marlene feels like objecting, but instead nods and watches him toboggan out of the cave. She feels a tap on her shoulder. Elm, looking down, points to a bunk for her. The beds were a lot like hers, and for some reason there were four of them. An involuntary yawn leaves her as she looks at them. Elm gives her a shy smile before he takes the blanket from her carefully and stretches it out on her bed. Ray goes to a switch on the wall and salutes her before he turns it off. Marlene barely has time to wonder how Kowalski's doing before she falls asleep.

* * *

It was still dark; the only sounds were soft breathing coming from the top bunks. Marlene sits up confused, wondering where she was. Her eyes adjust and she looks around, remembering the night before. This place was so different. The dark made the place seem bleak and threatening. Back at her habitat she usually began to draw pictures when she couldn't sleep, or take a quick swim in her pond; here, she couldn't do any of those things. The empty feeling of being a stranger gets to her, and she realizes how little she knew about the other animals here, or the zoo. Suddenly she longed for something familiar, anything…or anybody. Kowalski had said that he would be in the penguin habitat, she could stop by. But it was too early…although, maybe she could just say she wanted to make sure the egg was all right.

Before she could rethink things Marlene jumps out of bed quietly, grapping the blanket around herself. She sneaks quietly across the room, looking back to make sure Ray and Elm don't wake up. Once she was sure that they were still breathing deeply she scurries out of the cave and climbs up the fence. She goes to the zoo's path, finds the penguin arrow, and follows it. She comes to a wide area, very unlike that of the penguins at her zoo. This habitat was more of a shore area with the water on one side and the land on the other. An igloo sat on the edge of the wall, where she assumed was where Kowalski and the others were sleeping.

Marlene climbs over the hedge and makes her way towards the igloo. She stretches out her paw to knock on the door, but for some reason she can't. Her paw hangs in midair, Marlene suddenly feeling deep indecision forming in her head. _What was she doing? Running to Kowalski like a scared little child? No, she had way more pride than that._

Marlene lowers her paw and stands in place, trying to figure out what to do. She didn't feel like going back to the otter habitat yet, and she definitely didn't want to go in the penguin's either.

Had the taxi driver left yet? Perhaps she should go check on him to make sure he was all right, she wasn't sure how much damage Kowalski's hit to the neck caused, but it didn't seem slight. With a new purpose in mind, Marlene walks out of the habitat and through the zoo gates.

When she gets to the taxi again she finds that the lights are on and that the car is starting up. Marlene smiles, glad that the driver had woken up, she hoped he wasn't too disoriented. She walks farther down the sidewalk to get a look at the driver. He seemed very oriented, his eyes were wide open, he even seemed to have lost some weight…and changed his hair color…and gotten a different face.

_What?_

Marlene crawls quickly up the door, peeking in through the window. Kowalski was on the backseat, adjusting the incubator back in to the booster seat, his burlap sack on the floor. On his beak he clasped a fine paintbrush with white paint at the tip, obviously used only a few moments earlier. Marlene slides off of the door slowly, trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe Kowalski was just setting up thing and he was going to go get her later. That was sure to be it. She goes back to the gate and sits by it, deciding to wait for Kowalski to come get her instead of barging in on him. She wraps her blanket closer to her staring at the yellow taxi in front of the sidewalk.

She waits, and finally after a few minutes, she sees some movement, though it wasn't what she had expected. Instead of Kowalski hopping out of the taxi the car began to edge forward. Marlene stands, letting the blanket fall to the floor.

What was Kowalski doing!

* * *

Kowalski places his flippers firmly on the wheel and turns it, moving the car slowly out of the parking lot. He looks at the map he had set beside him and looks at his next destination. He felt that an eagle couldn't have possibly made it to Alaska yet, so through a series of calculations he had pin-pointed a possible place that she should have reached by the time he got there.

Leaving Marlene behind a day earlier was something he had done in order to be able to catch up to the eagle quicker, it was simple strategy. It had been vital that he leave her behind, of tremendous importance, of...of...

A storm seems to break loose in Kowalski's mind. He realizes he was also doing this in hopes that it would allow him to stop depending on having her contant precense near him. As hard to believe as it was, he did enjoy having her around; she was supportive of what he said, even when she didn't understand it. She was very nice, she took care of the egg as tenderly as he did, and she was also able to make him smile, which was something that usually only happened when he had candy or figured out a new equation. _Still, _he thinks firmly, hoping to soothe the turmoil of thoughts in him, _this is for the good of the mission. _

_So why was it suddenly so hard? She was a friend, only a friend. Maybe he was just having post-mission anxiety. _

As he turns down onto the road he feels a deep knot forming in his stomach. He had believed that when he got Marlene in the Hoboken zoo he would feel better, after all the danger she could get in was impressively high, but now that he was actually doing it he felt so bad, so incredibly lonely that he couldn't help but look at the gate to see if by some mere coincidence she was standing there and than he could allow her in to come along with him.

Nothing. The gate was empty.

Kowalski drives on, feeling the knot in him get tighter.


	7. Misconceptions

To Blouper, for being the bestest of all the best people in freaking hystory. To Knockknocktimerico, for being my pal and for being such a good writer, to Ponytail30527, for being so INCREDIBLY nice, and to Halfhuman123, and to Dragongirlj for reviewing.

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Misconceptions

Marlene feels the wind blow hard against her. She grips her paws more tightly trying to stay on. In hopes of staying as far away from the fast road beneath her, she holds her breath despite how much she felt like screaming. Her eyes water both from the effort of holding her breath so long, the fear of falling, anger, and something else she couldn't place. Anger she had felt before, both subtle and strong, but she felt it. This, this was new.

She had been mad at Julien many times before, that was nothing surprising. Sometimes she was ticked at Skipper, often because of his constant cocky attitude. She had been furious at Rhonda for using her as a tissue. And now, for the first time since she could remember, she was mad, no, _infuriated_ with Kowalski.

How could he have just left her? No warning, no good bye, no nothing. She supposed that she sort of had in a way forced him to allow her to come, but she had been trying to be a good friend.

The anger rises again as she remembers. And then, it's replaced by that weird feeling that she hadn't felt before. Maybe a bit, but so small she hadn't cared much for it… but now she did.

_What was it? _

It wasn't good, that was for sure.

Marlene feels more tears mount. She blinks rapidly, managing to hold them back. Her paw begins to slip so she freezes in place. It would not be good to fall right now. She sneaks a peek down.

The road was barely a blur. It was amazing how fast Kowalski could drive. Her heart beats faster, feeling like it wanted to jumps out of her throat. This hadn't been one of her greatest ideas. Of course, as big a jerk Kowalski was being at the moment, she still couldn't allow him to be by himself. He and the rest of his team might try to pretend that they could take on everything, but she had a feeling that this time Kowalski would need her help.

Although, maybe he _didn't_ need her, maybe she _was_ just complicating things. Marlene feels her grip slackening, edging her closer to the sharp road beneath her. _Kowalski was smart, he was able to detect a threat when it showed up, and he had gotten rid of her…it was simple logic. _

Marlene begins to fall down, her left foot hanging only a few inches from the road.

_But he's not always right._

Marlene gasps as she realizes how close she was to falling off and scrambles to grab on again. Hitching a ride _beneath_ a car had been the only thing she could think of at the time. Kowalski hadn't stopped so she just ran to the taxi and held on to the bottom. She couldn't tell if she regretted her brilliant decision, or if she was proud of herself for managing to hang on this long. If it weren't for all the thoughts running through her mind this might actually be enjoyable in a way. At the least it was thrilling, and when was the last time she had felt so much excitement, good or bad?

_Just think of this as _your _own secret mission. _She could do that. Keep watch over Kowalski as he went on his crazy operation. Not only Kowalski, but also the egg. If anything, she had to come to make sure he didn't drop it along one of his many unnecessary death-defying moves. Of course, first she would have to manage to hold on through the whole ride, and she wasn't sure if she could do that for much longer.

Kowalski gets off of the taxi for a while, looking carefully around. Coast was clear. He rubs his eyes wearily. Driving all night was finally getting to him. He takes out his calculations from the burlap sack with a sigh, rechecking to make sure they were correct.

Everything seemed to be in order.

Kowalski closes the door behind him and goes into the building. He hides behind a trashcan in order to get a better view of the place he was in; there were various young humans walking around, some in their near twenties, others in their teens. A few older ones ambled among the crowd with the air of importance that teachers always seemed to carry. Kowalski spots a large flashing sign up front. The red letters on it changed continually, dictating the student who would drive the directed plane.

Hitching a ride with a student plane driver was one of the drawbacks that Kowalski had to face do to the absence of the rest of his teammates. But he could manage. The flight he was waiting for would leave in about three hours, it would take him to the area he pinpointed on the map, where he would (he hoped) meet the mother eagle again and return her egg.

Of course, than there would still be the whole matter of facing Skipper…and Marlene. They probably wouldn't be too happy for what he had done. He shakes his head. There was no time to think about that, he had to focus. Forget how mad Marlene would be, how much she probably hated him, Marlene…oh, yes, and Skipper. Yes Skipper would probably be mad too, but Marlene... _Stop thinking about her! _Yes, that's what he had to do. Stop thinking about Marlene, trusting Marlene, whom he had betrayed. Who might not even be angry with him as much as saddened that he had…_Stop it!_

_Focus! Remember? The map, the plane, getting there, the forest, arriving, accomplishing the mission, the map, the plane, getting there, the forest…_

Kowalski's eyes close involuntarily and he has to slap himself. Well, there were three hours left, maybe he could sleep for a few minutes while he waited.

He finds a safe spot between a bench and a giant potted plant. He places the burlap sack beneath him like a pillow and rests his head against it. His eyes close and he quickly falls into a deep sleep.

Marlene stood rubbing her sore arms after the long ride. She sees Kowalski jump off of the taxi and dive quickly into the building's entrance; the only thing in his flippers was the burlap sack. So then…where was the egg?

Kowalski wakes up with only fifteen minutes left till the plane left (Not much of a plane really as much as a small aircraft). He jumps up swiftly and land on both his feet with the burlap sack at his side. He looks alertly around and makes sure no one is looking before getting ready to spring out from behind the bench.

Sudden realization strikes him though, and he stops mid-jump, stumbling and almost loosing his balance. The egg! Where was it?! Hadn't it been beside him…no, it hadn't. He had left it in the taxi!

In his haste, Kowalski runs out without caring whether anyone saw him. He toboggans quickly through the crowd, luckily his speed making him no more than an odd black and white blur. He gets to the entrance and looks frantically around, searching for the taxi. There were plenty of cars, but none were the bright yellow with the blond human inside them. He stands in place, not knowing where to go or what to do. He flips through his clipboard; he had never considered this as a possible problem before. If only he had placed that tracking device on the egg!

And then, the only thing in the world that he wanted to see appears before him. The egg, safe and not broken or cooked in a pan as he had assumed, in front of him. He gasps in astonishment and follows the arm that held it. And when he sees who's holding the egg he can't help but give a short shriek and jump back.

Marlene stood in front of Kowalski, her eyes showing exactly how much anger she felt. She holds the egg with one paw and places the other on her hip.

"Marlene?" Whispers Kowalski shocked. He nears her slowly in a trance-like manner, believing once more that this was a dream.

"But-but I-you, I mean, this is…the possibilities of this-how…when…umm…this-is this really you?" He stutters, unsure of what to say. He realizes then that perhaps this _wasn't _an odd illusion of his and suddenly what can only be described as relief and pure happiness fill him.

"Marlene!" He exclaims smiling hugely. Marlene places the egg down on the ground gently. She looks at him with narrowed eyes and steps closer. Pulling back her arm she hits him so suddenly he doesn't even have time to dodge.

Kowalski falls to the floor. He turns to face Marlene, stunned that she had hit with such force. He could feel the ache of a bruise spreading through the side of his beak, and though he had been hurt before this was different. It wasn't so much as the pain he felt from the hit, but the hate with which Marlene had struck him. He blinks rapidly, horrified to find his eyes watering. He wasn't a sissy; he would take this like a man.

Marlene walks closer to him and Kowalski backs up without standing, his eyes growing wider. He had no idea what to do, if Marlene decided to hit again he couldn't hit her back. And, as for dodging, well, he knew that she did have the right to beat him up if she wanted, he had messed up.

Marlene gets closer, her paws folded into fists. Kowalski holds back a gulp and opens his beak, feeling that he should get an apology in before she beat him to a pulp.

"I deserved that." He mutters, looking down. Marlene's paw appears in front of his face and Kowalski braces himself for the next hit. When none comes he looks at her and realizes that Marlene was now smiling warmly, her paw held out to him not to hit him, but to help him up.

"Yes, you did." She laughs smugly. Kowalski takes her paw hesitantly, but Marlene courtly helps him up and grins.

Kowalski takes a deep breath. He knew what came next.

"Marlene, I'm-"

"A big jerk?" says Marlene. Kowalski smiles grimly.

"Yes, but also, I want to say that-" Marlene holds up her paw shaking her head.

"I forgive you," She declares firmly, "if you promise to never do it again."

Kowalski nods solemnly. Marlene chuckles at his seriousness.

"Are you, by any slight possibility, bipolar?" He questions. He thought she would hate him forever, maybe even longer if by some statistical possibility emotions do live on forever. Marlene rolls her eyes and goes to get the egg. Kowalski follows, wondering once more how she had gotten there.

"Err, Marlene…" he trails off, still worried that Marlene's mood might turn for the worst again. Call him army man, but that otter could hit. Hard.

Marlene turns to him, still wearing that strange smile of hers.

"How did I get here?" She guesses. Kowalski nods.

"Simple," she states, "I held on to the bottom of the taxi and got to go on a little ride of my own."

Kowalski blinks.

"So then how did you-"

"Notice you left?" Marlene cuts off, "I got up in the middle of the night, went to check on the driver, and saw you trying to get away." She smiles sardonically, "Did you really think you could get rid of me so easily?"

"Perhaps I have been using the wrong formula…" Mutters Kowalski bemused. Marlene punches him playfully on the shoulder. Kowalski scowls at her, trying to figure her out. How inconsistent _was_ this otter?

"So, do I get to go along with you still, or will you try to drop me off at another cozy little zoo?" Marlene smirks, "After all, I think I've proved to you that I can handle this, and after this little accident" she holds up the egg. " I think it's pretty clear that you need me."

Kowalski stares appalled. She knew? How had she figured it out? He thought he had done a good job of hiding what he was thinking. And, as much as he hated to admit it, she was right. She could handle it, and if it weren't for her the egg would be back on the way to New York by now.

"You're more perceptive than I gave you credit for." He mutters, turning back to enter the building, a hint of pride ringing in his voice. Marlene decides to take that as a yes and follows behind, feeling somehow like she had won, and that, in a way, Kowalski now knew exactly what she was capable of. Somehow, that thought made her feel like doing a smug little dance and skipping along, but she holds her head high and walks after him with only a bit of a spring to her steps.

"So how did you end up forgetting this little guy?" She teases as soon as Kowalski turns around to see if she was following.

"Err…"

Marlene smirks.

"Whatever happened to 'always organized'?" She pushes. Kowalski grimaces and decides to ignore her. Marlene picks up her pace until she's side by side with him.

"Has this happened to you before?" She asks. Kowalski looks sideways at her.

"No. Usually another team member takes over while the others sleep so that we can remain focused."

Marlene nods.

"Well, next time, just give me the wheel if you get tired all right?" Kowalski stares warily at her smirk, which only makes Marlene laugh again.

In her arms, the egg gives a small tug to the side. It was so small and imperceptible that Marlene doesn't feel it, but it was there all the same.

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Side note, new community! Monsy's Choices, i know it sounds lame, but, join if you want! Send me a request and I'll add you :D Also, thanks to sudden inspiration from Skullshovel i now have a story trailer for this story which you can check out on my profile if you want. It has some from past chapters and a few glances at LATER AHEAD chapters :O So check it out!


	8. Discoveries

Hey, well, first off, DEDICATIONS :D They make the world go 'round XD kay, first, Knockknocktimerico, for being my beta for this chapter, and for putting up with me. Blouper, this story is ALL thanks to you, you're simply fantastic (not to mention she has THE BEST story on FF, Abnegation, I'd read it if i hadn't all ready ya'll ;D) to Ponytail, cause she's ALSO a big taco of awesome. To those of you who reviewed last time, and to YOU, who is reading this right now.

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Discoveries

Silence would not be a good word to describe the rushed run that Kowalski and Marlene made to get to their plane in time. Silence also wouldn't express the fit of muffled laughter they had after they got in and found out that the student driver was a young girl of twenty who dropped her McSwirly on the teacher's pants. Silence though, would sum up perfectly Marlene's and Kowalski's reaction to finding out that they were once more together, on their way to the possible unknown, and that for a while they had hated each other. The awkwardness that hung between them was so deep it was almost tangible. Marlene shifts on the spot, still not used to the quiet that seemed to be a prevailing trait in Kowalski.

Surprisingly, it's him who breaks the silence this time.

"You know, I think right now would be the ideal time to candle this egg." He says quietly while holding it up. Marlene is instantly confused.

"Candle the egg?" _What kind of sick thing was candling?_

Kowalski nods.

"The student driver appears to be too focused on her driving and the instructor on holding on to the edge of the seat, so I'm sure they won't pay notice to a small flash of light." He states. Marlene gulps.

"What exactly is 'candling'?" She questions. Kowalski smiles as he digs through his bag.

"I'll show you."

He takes out a small flashlight and holds the egg carefully up to it. The egg seems to glow like a magical orb heard of only in fairy tales. Marlene stares in awe as she gets closer. Kowalski turns the egg slowly and stops with a surprisingly tender smile on his face.

"I think I found it." He smiles. Marlene looks from his illuminated face to the egg. It was still glowing, but a small bean-like shadow now took up most of the inside. It was sort of hard to make out as the shell was so opaque, but to Marlene it seemed to stand out like the brightest star in the sky.

"Is that…the chick?" She whispers. Kowalski nods slowly. Marlene feels soft warmth inside her, the wonderfulness of the moment keeping her spellbound. She smiles at Kowalski and he smiles back. They sit for a few seconds, staring at each other before Kowalski speaks.

"Isn't it adorable?" He asks. He moves his flipper in a tickling motion at what he assumed was the belly. Marlene laughs at his reaction. He looks quickly at her with a resigned look and resumes cooing at the egg.

Marlene shrugs and joins him.

In this case, silence would also be suitable to describe what was going on inside the egg, where, barely able to realize what was going on, the small chick's beak flutters into a smile.

"So where exactly are we?"

"Exactly on Worthington, Pennsylvania."

"And she's here?"

No answer.

"Well?"

"According to statistics...maybe."

Marlene scowls as she grabs the incubator with the egg in it. He grabs the burlap sack and leads the way off of the plane. The landing area was pretty large and open, with large trees surrounding it. Kowalski makes his way along, looking at his notes for the next step in his calculations. He hears a soft growl behind him and turns around rapidly; nobody there but Marlene, who smiles in a friendly way and cocks her head in confusion.

"Anything wrong?" She asks. Kowalski shakes his head.

_Must have been the wind…_

They walk out of the landing area and into the building. Kowalski looks around quickly.

"We need to find a suitable place to arrange our things." He commands. Marlene sees a door marked with a sign she had seen various times back at the zoo.

"How about there?" She points, hiding a smile. He would never fall for it, but it would still be fun to see his expression.

Kowalski toboggans into the room, and into a cubicle like place, Marlene staring open-mouthed. He had fallen for it!

"Ummm, Kowalski?" She calls. Kowalski looks up from the compass he was looking at.

"Do you, umm, have any idea where we are?" She asks. Kowalski raises an eyebrow.

"I've already told you, we are in-"

"No, not that," Marlene cuts off, " I mean, _here_, in this room here." Kowalski looks around, realizing what she meant.

"The…restroom?" He says horrified.

Marlene nods.

"Not just any restroom…" She opens the stall door for him to look out from. Kowalski's eyes widen as he takes in the pink walls and flowery decorations.

"This is the…_female _restroom?" Kowalski looked like he was going to be sick. Marlene covers her mouth with her free paw to keep from laughing. She watches amused as Kowalski backs away slowly, trying not to make contact with anything in the room.

"Let's go to a more suitable location…"

She follows him out as he rushes through the crowd, still somehow keeping alert of no humans seeing him, until he stops at a silver door. Kowalski leaps and presses a button, jumping in quickly as soon as it opens. Marlene steps in carefully, wondering why he had gone into such a small room. With a soft beep the door closes behind her.

"What-"

The room begins to move and Marlene feels like she's being pushed down. She holds back the urge to throw up and draws the egg closer to her, staring at Kowalski in alarm. He stares back serenely, though there was a hint of a smile on his beak.

"Elevator." He states. Marlene stumbles to the wall and leans against it. After a few seconds the room stops with a short jerk that makes Marlene feel like stretched silly putty. She breathes a sigh of relief once she steps onto floor that didn't belong to the death trap known as an 'elevator'. Kowalski gets out, determinedly avoiding her gaze.

"What was that about?" She asks. Kowalski turns around with the oddest expression on his face. It wasn't so much that she didn't recognize it, but that she had never seen it _on_ him.

"Oh, just a little something better known to you as 'payback'." He replies, smugness radiating off of him. Marlene stands astonished. _Was this really Kowalski?_ Kowalski smiles.

"My apologies Marlene," He says with laughter still showing in his eyes, "reprisal is one of the few traits that I've acquired from military life."

Marlene scowls.

"Yeah, good one there." She mutters. Another strange happening; Kowalski practically rolling on the ground, shaking with laughter.

"It wasn't even that funny." Marlene mutters once Kowalski had gotten himself under control.

"Pardon my anomalous sense of humor." Replies Kowalski through a few chuckles.

"Yeah, so what are we doing here? Or will a hole open up underneath me while you laugh your head off?"

Kowalski coughs unconvincingly.

"Actually, this is just a room that will lead us to the stairs, which we will proceed to take until we get to the pinnacle of this building."

"Right…" Marlene mutters, remembering that it was better to go along with it than to ask questions.

As promised, Kowalski and Marlene soon found themselves before a short flight of stairs that led to a small door, big enough for a human to crawl through, though for them it was no trouble. Outside, the entire building's area stood before them as a flat roof on which the wind and sun forced Marlene to cover her eyes with her paw. Kowalski ignores the annoying forces of nature and sets to work on his gadgetry. From his bag he takes out a pair of binoculars, a compass, a watch, a white flag, and last but not least, his clipboard.

Marlene cradles the egg as Kowalski turns around slowly with the compass on his flipper.

He checks his clipboard and motions to Marlene.

"According to my calculations she should be coming from that direction over there." He points to the horizon, which was surrounded by the green of an infinite sea of trees. Marlene squints at the bright blue of the sky, expecting to see the majestic bird that was Mrs. Eagle fly across it. Nothing.

"Yeah, about that, _when_ will she show up?" She asks. Kowalski looks down at his clipboard and then down at the watch.

"In approximately one minute, fifty-six seconds." He responds. Marlene nods, standing beside him in their search for the eagle.

The wind blows hard, ruffling Marlene's fur and Kowalski's feathers. The smell of leaves and pine trees fill Marlene's lungs. She breathes in deeper, looking at the wide expanse of the sky that went on forever around her. _So open._

"Get Ready Marlene." Calls Kowalski, "Once I spot Mrs. Eagle you will wave that white flag around and meanwhile I will hoist up the egg so she can see that it's safe and sound."

She nods and picks up the flag with one paw, her other still holding the egg. The flag waves in the wind making loud fluttering sounds. It looked like it wanted to fly away. To become part of the wind and go wherever it went, eternally free of everything. Marlene stares at it. _So do I._

"Thirty seconds." Warns Kowalski. She shakes her head and goes back to looking at the sky. Mother Eagle would be there soon, and then she would be able to give the egg back. Give the egg back and most likely never see it again. She wouldn't get to see it hatch. Or see the small baby bird grow into as majestic a creature as his or her mother. Marlene looks down at the egg, so warm even in this cold wind, so soft and creamy. She felt like it was hers now. She was so used to having it in her arms, to hold it close when she was cold, or worried, or mad. And it was about to leave.

She looks at Kowalski quickly, but his back was to her, his eyes glued to the sky which he gazed at through the binoculars. She feels her eyes begin to water. _Was this really goodbye?_

She puts the flag down and hugs the egg, feeling the smooth shell against her cheek. The wind blows again, bringing with it the sweet scent of earth. Marlene feels her fur stand on end, though not because of the cold. A strange sensation, like an unbearable tickle and itch began to go through her. She feels like running away with the egg, to feel the soft dirt beneath her paws as she ran through the trees, with nothing to stop her.

The odd feeling begins to grow stronger and she rushes to Kowalski's bag to look for something to stop it. She digs through the confusing objects until a strong familiar scent reaches her nose. She grabs onto the article that had brought it to her and finds feathers in her paw.

Eagle feathers.

She remembers then the feathers that lined the nest, Kowalski must have taken some.

Ten seconds!" Calls Kowalski. Marlene's head snaps up. She was almost here! Mother Eagle would be back to take her baby with her. The sting of tears comes to her, magnified by the harsh wind.

"Nine…Eight… Seven…"

_The wind blows again. It smelled so …free._

"Six…Five… Four…"

Kowalski takes the egg from Marlene. She looks down so that he doesn't see her face. He barely even notices.

"Three…Two…two…two…" Kowalski's voice breaks at the last part; he keeps repeating the same word, not even looking at the sky anymore. Marlene tires to suppress the strange feeling in her and faces him. Kowalski opens his beak.

"One."

They look up at the same time, as if the single word had broken the spell and they were now forced by some invisible entity to stare at the sky.

A small dot was visible in the horizon.

"Marlene, the flag." Says Kowalski, not taking his eyes from the figure. Marlene nods, barely aware, and picks up the flag. She waves it in air, pushing against the unkind wind. The form gets closer, and she can make out the wings, spread out from the elegant body that was so perfectly adapted for flight. She grips the flag tighter, waving as if it was the last thing that mattered on earth.

All she wanted to do was leave. To scamper off and not see any of this again. Not the egg, not the eagle, not Kowalski. He had been right she shouldn't have come along. She had thought that she could handle it, all those moves that were so unnecessary, running around all the time, fighting, she could take it. Problem was, she had never anticipated _this, _the whole prospect of letting go, to be part of it.

At least she would have Kowalski.

_What?_

The figure in the sky comes close enough for them to notice the finer details. It's wings and tail were too stiff, the body too long, the color wrong. It wasn't the eagle.

It was a plane.

Marlene drops her flag.

_A plane? A plane!_

She goes to the bag again and takes out the eagle feathers. She breathes in their scent, smelling the wind in them, feeling the warmth they provided, sensing the freedom in them.

She feels the anger rise in her, and with it the weird sensation. She could feel claws coming from her paws, small fangs showed in her mouth. The current of air blows through her causing a strange whistling in her ears. It was calling to her. She gets up, ignoring Kowalski's cry of resentment.

"It was all here! Science is _never_ wrong! Something must have happened."

Marlene walks to the edge of the building where the branches of the trees made contact. She takes a deep whiff of the feathers in her paw and leaps into the nearest branch. The sensation explodes inside her. And she runs.

Suddenly she's not Marlene who's worried about the egg. She's not Marlene who hates to feel so vulnerable. She's not Marlene who can't figure out what she's feeling half the time. She's not Marlene anymore.

The wind blows, and this time, Marlene runs with it.

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Don't think i forgot Marlene's little problem XD (actually Blouper pointed it out to me XD) so, R&R? It makes me happy in the way candy makes Private happy (which you should know is A LOT)


	9. Searching

Happy Gobble Day everyone :D What am I thankful for? Let's see, Blouper, my beta, who is so freaking awesome I find it hard to believe she's not Wonderwoman. Knockknocktimerico, who else would put up with my ramblings and ideas, and everyday problems like he would? uh, no one, that's who. Littlebirdy05, for being a great author, for being amazing, and for reading my story, Kowalski's Origin, and keeping it going. For the producers of POM, for making this great show, and of course, I'm also grateful to have YOU fellow fanfictioner, reading this. I mean, what's the motivation if no one is reading? So, yes, hope your day is great and full of fun :D

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Searching

Kowalski saw Marlene jump into the tree. His heart seems to climb to his throat as he runs to her, forgetting completely the frustration of being wrong. The last thing he sees is her leap off and run down the forest. He hears loud growls echo through the trees and realizes instantly what was going on.

"_I think she's just gone wild." _Private had summed it up perfectly before, how could he have forgotten? Never let Marlene out, those had been the orders Skipper had given them, and here they were, in the middle of Worthington forest, in the open.

_I have to find her._

But the eagle! Even if she hadn't flown through here exactly at the precise time that he had assumed there was still a high possibility that she might show up soon. If he left to look for Marlene he might miss the chance to give the egg back.

He hugs the egg close; in the same way that he had seen Marlene do so many times. He didn't want to give it back. There was so much still left to learn, so many mysteries to solve, so many tests… so many things that he had hoped to be able to teach to the young hatchling.

But he knew he had to return it, he hadn't told Marlene yet, but the chick was actually very big now, there was barely any time left before it hatched.

_Think Kowalski!_

He had to figure out what to do. But what _could_ he do? It was either loosing Marlene or leaving a chick motherless.

He looks up at the sky.

Nothing.

He wasn't one to believe in omens, but at a time like this he was willing to go with what seemed best. No time to consider options now, the eagle wasn't there and Marlene was still within reaching distance, that was all that mattered.

Kowalski places a tight grip on the egg and jumps into the branch that Marlene had previously occupied. Once he manages to climb down the sky disappears from view, covered completely by the dense trees. He searches around for any sign of Marlene, finding a few broken twigs and bushes that appeared to have been shoved aside.

He runs the way they lead, hoping to be able to catch up with her. The vegetation in the place was hard to go through; scratching at him and making him stumble a few times. He needed something to cut through the woods, but he had left his bag behind!

With no other choice, Kowalski picks up a long branch off of the ground and uses it to shove aside ferns and branches. The stick digging sharp splinters onto his flippers. He thinks about stopping to take them out, knowing that if not treated correctly a splinter could become infected, but he decides against it. An infection was nothing to the possibility of Marlene's dea. Kowalski cuts off the thought, focusing once again on shoving the hindering vegetation aside.

The hints to the direction Marlene took were so subtle he had to stop every now and then to make sure he was going in the right direction.

"Marlene!"

No answer.

"Marlene!"

Nobody there besides him and the egg.

He looks around anxiously, hoping to see a patch of brown or white, but he only sees the rough brown of trees and the white of a few shy flower buds that barely peeked out of their stems. He keeps running, the egg in his arms beginning to slip. The almost imperceptible trail becomes even less noticeable a few steps ahead, and once he had walked that far it suddenly disappeared.

No fur, no branches shoved aside or broken twigs. Kowalski drops the stick and turns in circles, the only sign of any other creature having been there was the trail _he_ had made.

Worry bubbles in him, his thoughts spinning faster in his head with no solution forming. He opens his beak to call to her, but instead he hears himself ask, "What now?"

* * *

So many smells! The fresh wind, the wet earth that smelled like leaves, the pine trees, the scent of other animals, all for her to investigate freely. Marlene feels the soft caress of the wind against her fur as she jumps from branch to branch. It was so exhilarating to see the ground so far beneath her, and to hang on to the nearest thing at the last second, maneuvering her body so that she was thrown into the air once more. Growls echo through the woods as Marlene laughs, her fangs glinting in the occasional glimpse of light.

Marlene stops on one of the branches, surveying her surroundings. Where to go? She breathes rapidly, trying to smell the forest and catch her breath at the same time. So many things. So open. She had to go to it all.

She jumps off and grabs onto the next branch, but something makes her slip. Marlene clutches tighter onto it, but it was too late. A scared whine escapes her as she falls to the ground.

The soft floor of leaves prevents her fall from being detrimental, but she was still annoyed.

Marlene gets up grumpily, shaking off pine needles from her fur. She looks down as something catches her eyes. She watches a single brown feather float slowly to the ground amid the many leaves. She cocks her head to the side. Somehow, the feather looked familiar.

_Bird. _

She picks it up and sniffs it, the silky softness of it tickling her nose.

_Eagle. _

It seemed so familiar, where had she smelled this before?

_Mother eagle._

She looks up curiously at the tree that it had fallen from, feeling like there was a certain importance to it. It wasn't significant like water or food, but she could feel the need to find it all the same.

She climbs up the tree with ease, her sharp claws keeping a good grip on the tree bark. Once on the branch she had slipped from she sniffs around, and catches the same smell as that of the feather lingering on the branch. After a quick inspection Marlene realizes that the smell was still in the forest. She begins going from tree to tree once more, this time with a purpose in mind.

_Mother eagle._

* * *

Mother Eagle swoops around the forest, looking for food. She sits on a branch to rest her wings. She hoped she would make it back to Alaska soon. Perhaps there she would at least know where she was.

It was dangerous to travel lately, but she had to do it. She would prefer to just be high in the sky but the trees were too dense to look through. There really was no choice right now, she had to eat. Her stomach growls almost painfully, and she was tired of flying for so many days without stopping. Right now, all she had in mind was food. Hunger had been the last thing on her mind after the incident, but now it was about all she could think of. She had to find some food!

She could remember how the hunters had taken her mate down while in Alaska. She had been left to cope with her egg by herself, and she supposed she wouldn't have made it if the humans hadn't stepped in. She couldn't remember much after they gave her a small shot, but when she had woken up she had been in a strange city, with food beside her and her precious egg beneath her. The humans had set her free to choose a location and create her own nest. Once she had gotten settled, they brought her food if she didn't find enough, and occasionally checked in on her. Things had begun to get better.

And then, the day had come when the zoo animals showed up.

She feels the anger return to her as she remembers the way the lemur had taken her egg, how the penguin had attacked her when she tried to take it back, how the otter had grabbed it and disappeared. The penguin had looked for the otter, she had looked for her egg, but she knew from past experience that once lost, an egg is forever gone. So she left.

And now, here she was, in the middle of a forest, starving, barely able to fly anymore, and alone. She hoped that in Alaska she would maybe find some of her old friends, maybe get back to her old nest, and hopefully avoid the hunters.

A soft rustling makes her turn around. A small furry creature was making its way towards her. Although the creature was quite far from her, she could tell it was an otter. Most specifically, it was something she could eat.

Lunch is served.

* * *

Marlene sees the eagle swoop towards her. She stops in her tracks, confused at the fierce look on the eagle's face and the way her claws reached out to her. Survival instinct kicks in instantly, and Marlene jumps at the eagle, hitting her on the face. The eagle gives a high shriek of fury and prepares to attack once more. Marlene dives off of the branch and once on the ground she turns to face the eagle, every muscle in her body readying for battle.

* * *

Kowalski searches for any trace of Marlene. He flips over leafs, inspects tree bark around him, and looks around him every few seconds. Each leaf that he turns over, each piece of tree that shows no sign of Marlene, and every time he looks around once more make him more and more frustrated. His movements become more rushed, and he can hear his breathing speeding up.

_Where is she?_

As form of response, he hears a loud shriek. He stands up, instantly alert. He could recognize that sound anywhere, it was the sound of an eagle! Being the only thing he could go by, Kowalski grabs the egg and runs to the place where it had come from, ignoring completely the wild ferns and shrubs that dig past his feathers and into his skin.

The closer he gets the more noises he hears. Fierce growling and piercing caws sounded through the forest, followed by sharp snaps and hits. Kowalski runs faster, he had an idea of what might be going on, and if he was right then it wouldn't be good.

He gets to a place in the forest that didn't seem as dense. The overgrowth was pushed down, bent, and broken. He hears a loud yelp and looks up. Marlene lay on the ground, her face twisted in pain as she clasps her arm, which was oozing blood from a cut on the side. In front of her the eagle stands glaring at her, a few feathers missing from her head. She nears Marlene, what was in her mind all too clear. Kowalski feels fear for Marlene rise in him, and, not being able to think of anything else to do, he puts the egg down and leaps at the eagle.

Marlene stares confused at what she saw. A penguin was attacking the eagle, trying to hinder her. She gets up and glares at the penguin; this was _her_ business! With a sly leap, Marlene tackles the penguin off of the eagle and bears her teeth at him. The penguin lays on the ground in shock.

"Marlene?" He asks. Marlene blinks. That sounded familiar…

The eagle grasps her with her claws, throwing her against a tree. Marlene felt the wind knocked out of her and a sharp pain on her spine. She gets up with renewed anger.

Kowalski goes to her.

"Let's go!" He tells her, pulling on her arm. Marlene pushes him to the ground. He stands up again, confusion on his face.

"Don't you realize-"

Kowalski lets out a frightened "Woah!" as the eagle appears in front of him. She swipes him with her beak, which he tries to dodge but still gets a cut across his white feathers. He stands, unable to believe that this had happened. Marlene also stands still, though it wasn't out of surprise. She feels wild rage rise in her, it was very illogical anger, because she couldn't remember ever meeting the penguin before, but for some reason, the sight of him being hurt pushed her to the edge.

She runs to the eagle, who in turn rises off the ground. Marlene grabs onto her feathers, yanking as many as possible. The eagle pecks at her with her sharp beak but Marlene ducks in time. Kowalski goes to them. He grabs her paw, trying to pull her away, but she kicks his face. This was _her _battle. Kowalski shakes his head but otherwise ignores her gesture.

"Marlene stop!" He yells, still holding tightly to her paw.

Marlene growls.

The eagle spreads out her wings and rises into the air, taking Marlene and Kowalski with her. Kowalski yanks Marlene's arm harder. Irritated, she opens her mouth and bites his flipper as hard as she can. Kowalski yelps and lets go, falling down and landing on his back. He gets up with a flip and looks at them, ignoring the sharp pain that was starting to develop across his chest.

Mother eagle was now trying to get away, that was obvious, but Marlene was still keeping up the fight. He had to stop her before she hurt the eagle, or herself. He runs to the nearest tree and begins to climb it. Once at the top he gets ready to jump, the wind ruffling his feathers.

The eagle falls to the ground, giving a surprised shriek. Marlene stops hitting her long enough to look around. A weird, thick, string-like thing was on top of her. She picks it up and sniffs it. It smelled like fur from lots of different animals. She tries to get it off of her but the more she pulls the more of it comes. She becomes angrier and angrier, fighting against the restraining rope, all to no prevail.

Kowalski stands on the tree stunned. Where did that net come from? He looks around and sees a man walking towards them. He had messy dark-brown hair, dirty jeans, and a flannel shirt with various small rips on it. On his back a long rifle hung from a rope tied across his chest. He has a superior smile plastered on his face as he bends down beside the imprisoned animals.

"Well, well. What have we here?" He says, "You two little creatures don't get along very well do you?"

He tries to pet Marlene but she bites his finger. The hunter draws back, the smile gone.

"You won't be doing that for long." He whispers to her. Marlene bares her teeth. The hunter smiles and picks up the net, taking Marlene and the eagle still in it. Marlene goes crazy, scratching, biting, and hitting the net. The eagle sits still merely trying to stay out of her way. The hunter ignores Marlene's attempts at getting away and walks down the forest.

Kowalski watches even more shocked than before, trying to figure out a way to set them free. The hunter bends down suddenly in a spot that seemed familiar to Kowalski. The laugh that the hunter emits tells him exactly what spot it was. Dread spreads through him. He walks farther down the branch, trying to reach for what he had left there, knowing all along that he was too far away. It was too late anyway.

"Guess this is my lucky day." The hunter says merrily. He stands up, a small brown egg on his hand. Whistling as he walks, the hunter makes his way back to his home, glad with the day's proceedings.

Behind him, a small drop of blood falls from a high branch, the creature to whom it belonged to not even realizing how deep the wound it had emitted from really was.

* * *

Side notes, to those of you who haven't done so yet, you should check out the POM fan site, it's really neat really, and several of our Fanfictioners are part of it, me included. The link is .com/spots/penguins-of-madagascar if ya'll want to check it out :) Also, reminder, there is a trailer of this story on my profile if you're interested, and a poll on the Marski subject. Also, review if you want, it'll be like a great delicious feast for me :D


	10. Desolation

Ah yes, a new chapter, I hope ya'll enjoy it :D I have Blouper to thank here, she made this ten times better than it was before, cause she's amazing like that :D Knockknocktimerico for being the definition of awesome, Littlebirdy05 for putting up with me and writing a fantasticmondal story, Kvzpenguin for reviewing on so many of my chapters, Spottedpaw13 for adding me to her fave lists and being super cool :)

* * *

Desolation

Kowalski rushes to reach Marlene. All he had to do was get to the hunter, knock him out with a swift hit to the neck, and he would be able to free Marlene and the eagle. He rushes through the undergrowth, slipping a few times thanks to the blood that was emitting from his chest. He barely notices.

The hunter had the advantage of being able to step over the tall weeds and brushwood, but Kowalski had the advantage of surprise. He gets closer to the human, crouching down out of instinct. He didn't need to look over the plants to know where he was, Marlene's growls gave away their location easily. He gets closer, just a few more feet…

The hunter stops. In one quick move he drops the net that held Marlene and the eagle prisoners, drops the egg into his pocket, takes his rifle from his shoulder, and aims at the exact spot where Kowalski stood.

Kowalski freezes in place, not daring to breathe. His heart beat so rapidly it was as if it wanted to run away from the spot, not caring if Kowalski went with it or not.

The hunter keeps his hand on the rifle and steps closer, eye locked on the source of noise he had heard. It was surprisingly quiet, not one bird sang, not one squirrel moved, even Marlene had stopped her growling. Kowalski feels sharp shivers travel down his spine. There was nowhere to go.

He lies down on the ground, trying to make himself as small as possible. Closing his eyes, he waits for the hunter to either pass him by unnoticed, or shoot him on the spot.

He feels the cold front of the rifle poke his side. He doesn't move, doesn't breathe, pretends to be dead.

"Of all the-"

The hunter bends down beside him in amusement.

"So it is a penguin," He laughs, "and I thought I'd seen everything." Kowalski feels a stab of pain as the hunter prods the cut on his chest with a stick. He clamps his beak down to keep from doing something stupid. It wouldn't do to get up and start screaming right now.

He feels himself being lifted up and upon opening his eyes slightly, he can see that the human had slung him over his shoulder, and had resumed walking, the net at his side. Marlene twists her body so that she can look up at him. She still seemed wild, but there actually seemed to be some concern in her eyes when she looked at him. He opens one eye and gives her a small wave. She smiles and resumes trying to pulverize the net.

Kowalski considers his situation. He was being carried on a hunter's back like a string of dead fish. Marlene was stuck inside the net and even if he did manage to get her out she was not in control of anything she did and didn't see reason. No one knew where they were, Skipper was probably back from his trip by now, having most likely gotten to the Base and word that there was in fact, no tournament. He'd be very mad, that was for sure, not to mention that he was probably on his way to the Hoboken Zoo to pick up Marlene. And, of course, Marlene was not there, she was here with him, most likely about to have their skins ripped from their bodies.

So what were his options?

Well, he was very close to the hunter's neck. A swift hit should suffice. Then there would be the whole "taking care of Marlene", as if there wasn't enough trouble. But the hunter still had the egg in his pocket, if he fell there was the chance that it would get crushed. Perhaps he should just wait until they got to their destination…wherever that was.

With nothing else in mind, Kowalski lets his body go limp and pretends to be dead, feeling that it would be a good disguise for now.

* * *

"Home sweet home!" Calls the hunter as he opens the door. It was a small cabin, visibly used only occasionally with barely the most essential furniture, and three rooms; a kitchen, a bathroom, and a small bedroom.

It wouldn't be something to brag about, except that either on the walls or on the furniture, there was a vivid sign of the hunter's true passion. A small mat made up of different types of fur lay on the floor; the chair was made of a soft, black material. On the walls heads of various animals seemed to look around with fake eyes.

Kowalski stares in horror.

Marlene stops growling. He looks down at her, surprised to see her in her normal state, her face no longer twisted with wild ferocity. Instead, Marlene had a bewildered and frightened face as she looked around. He catches her eye and motions for her to stay still. She nods quietly.

It appeared that as long as she was_ inside_ someplace she would be normal. Kowalski makes a mental note to further study this phenomenon…if he made it out alive.

The hunter places Marlene and the eagle on a table carelessly, knowing that if they tried to escape he could always shoot them; he was going to anyway.

Kowalski he throws on the sink. Sticking to the façade, Kowalski hold back a cry from the pain that goes through him as the cold steel makes contact with the cut on his chest.

"Now don't worry little fella," smiles the hunter as he turns on the faucet and places him beneath the running water, "I'm just gonna scrub you up, get the red off yer feathers, and then most likely mount you in a special place above my chimney." He rubs his fingers hard against Kowalski's feathers, the water turning a liquid red.

"Not every time I catch me a penguin, no sir, I always told me self 'Tom, you gotta catch somethin' good today, catch somethin' exciting.' And here you show up outta nowhere. Yes sir, this is my lucky day it is." Tom puts Kowalski down, to his immense relief; the human wasn't too gentle on his all ready painful slash, and it wasn't easy pretending to be dead when you feel like you're being cut open.

"You ain't got long now." Notes Tom, "I'll just wait out." He goes to his bedroom, leaving Kowalski beneath the open faucet. He takes the opportunity to crawl out of the sink, his cut leaving a bright trail. He looks around and grabs a dishtowel, pressing it against the wound. It would have to do.

Kowalski ties it around him, grinding his beak when it catches some cut skin. As Skipper said "The wound is your enemy; pain, weakness, and blood, you gotta fight every one of its tricks."

He looks for Marlene. She was talking soothingly to the eagle, who seemed to not be paying attention to her at all. She sees him coming towards her and shuffles the net around so she can stand facing him.

"We found Mother Eagle." She says with failed optimism. She looks down at the red towel he had tied across his chest. Stretching her paw out through the net, she presses one finger tentatively on it, frowning when she sees her fur turn scarlet.

"How did you do this?" Her eyes look at him with worry, completely clueless of the events that had taken place. Kowalski shakes his head.

"Unimportant. Right now we need to find the egg, and get out of here." He goes to the opposite side of the table, where a knife was lying. Walking back (he would have preferred to toboggan, but he couldn't at the moment) he begins to cut at pieces of the net, being careful to not let the knife near Marlene or the eagle. Once he had managed to free them, Marlene steps out and looks around.

"All right, so what now?" She asks.

"Oh no."

"Wha-"

Kowalski grabs her arm and pulls her along with him as he runs. They jump off the table clumsily, Marlene from not noticing what was coming and Kowalski from the sharp pain he felt as he landed. She feels him grip her arm tightly while he held his breath. She bends down beside him, but he merely puts his flipper to his beak and points to the side. Turning, she notices Tom the hunter walking past, she couldn't tell what he was doing, the table was in the way, but she knew it was not good to have him so close.

Searching quickly, she pulls Kowalski up and leads him beneath a nearby counter. They crouch down and wait for Tom to leave the room.

Suddenly Marlene remembers.

"Kowalski!" She gasps "We forgot-"

Kowalski covers her mouth with his flipper, and nods solemnly. Her eyes widen in panic. She pushes his flipper aside.

"What do we do?" she whispers. Kowalski stands up; she notices how carefully he moved, and the way his flippers were curled into fists.

"Stay here." He mutters. He waits for Tom to walk by before jumping out into the kitchen, climbing up the table fairly quickly considering his state. Marlene keeps watch on Tom, who was busy talking to a stuffed elk head.

"Thought yourself so mighty. Ha! I remember you, rubbing your antlers against that tree, getting it sharp enough to cut through me. Well, it didn't work. No sir, I was quicker than ya. So how do you feel now, eh!" Tom listens to the silent reply the elk gives him, smirking arrogantly at it.

"I thought so," he laughs, "and you!" he turns to another dead animal, "you were no better…"

Marlene looks back at Kowalski, figuring that she had time while Tom finished his conversation. She couldn't see what was going on, so she runs out of her hiding place and begins climbing the chair, from there jumping several times before finally reaching the edge of the table.

She struggles to get up, suddenly feeling a warm flipper on her arm. Kowalski helps her up.

She wants to point out his too-tight grip and the way he placed his flipper over his chest as if to try to keep it together, but he waves aside her worried comment, replacing it with one of his own.

"She won't move."

Mother eagle sat on the table, breathing slowly, eyes closed, feathers ruffled and askew. Marlene goes to her and shakes her gently.

"Ummm, Mrs. Eagle? It's me Marlene. We-Kowalski and I- want you to come with us. You have to…" Mother eagle looks at her with dull eyes, not bothering to move or give any incentive that she was awake other then blinking. Marlene tugs on her wing, but she's too big for her.

"Come on!" she pleads, "won't you do it for your chick?" she asks. Mother eagle lifts her head up slowly, confusion in her eyes. Marlene rushes to take advantage of her reaction.

"Yeah, your egg! Kowalski has it; you just have to help us get out of here."

Mother eagle stares at her, her eyes skeptical, yet a sudden spark was dancing in her eyes as if she didn't want to believe, but was having trouble not doing so. Marlene nods her head eagerly.

"I'm not lying, Kowalski, you tell her." She pulls Kowalski over carefully, feeling that he might be better at persuading than her. Kowalski takes a second to clear his throat and nods.

"Marlene speaks the truth. Although, I don't have the egg. But I know where it is." He rushes to say, "It is currently lodged in the hunter's pocket, but I believe that if we work together we will be able to retrieve it…if you'll be willing to help us." He finishes. Marlene and Kowalski stand side by side, waiting for her response.

Mother eagle sits still. She looks down, not meeting their gaze. She looked so much different. How could it be possible, in so little time, how changed she was? She was thinner, it was visible through her feathers, there was still dirt and brown smudges on them from her past struggle, not to mention the places where her feathers were missing, showing red, irritated skin beneath. What had happened to the majestic bird from only a few days ago?

Marlene feels her eyes begin to water. With Kowalski hurt, and Mother eagle so messed up would they make it? At least she wasn't hurt, she could help. Except…a sudden ache makes her look down. Her arm had a cut on the side. It had stopped bleeding and the blood had dried; yet now it was throbbing, and she began to feel the burning pain.

A sudden surge of wind makes her look up. Mother eagle was standing before them. Marlene feels her breath leave her. It was as if she was watching an instant transformation. Standing at her full height, Mother Eagle was once more impressive. Her size and posture gave the picture of confidence, and hope.

Kowalski laughs.

"I don't have my clipboard, but I think we can get out of here if we-"

As Kowalski speaks, time seems to slow.

Marlene looks at Kowalski, whose face was filled with fear. She follows his gaze and realizes why he had stopped talking. A few paces away stood Tom, his rifle in his hands, one eye closed, the other one looking directly at Mother Eagle.

A sharp click sounds in the silence.

Kowalski shoves Mother Eagle aside, the table exploding where she had been standing. Marlene is thrown backwards by the impact. She lands on her back, still on the table, but very close to the edge. She looks up, bewildered. She tries to look for Kowalski, her heart beating loudly, but something was blocking her vision. She blinks rapidly and suddenly things come into focus. Two endless tunnels came into focus. Marlene stares into the dark depths of Tom's rifle.

The hunter aims his gun at Marlene, smiling smugly.

"Gotcha."

* * *

Kowalski feels a searing pain travel through his body. Mother Eagle stood beside him, waiting for him to stand up.

He presses his flipper against his chest, feeling something warm soak through the dishtowel. He didn't need to look to know what it was. But there were more important matters at hand. He holds his breath and stands up, nodding his head resolutely at Mother Eagle. She bobs her head in agreement, and, through their unspoken accord she rises to the air and grabs on to his shoulders with enough grip to take him into the air with her.

The room's perspective changes as Mother Eagle carries Kowalski through the air. He sees Tom standing by the table, poised to shoot his rifle, Marlene's eyes wide and frightened.

He looks up at Mother Eagle and nods. Mother Eagle spreads her wings out to their full extent and dives down. Kowalski stretches his flippers out, reaching as far as he can.

Marlene closes her eyes, closing her paws into fists.

_Please let Kowalski make it._

Tom smiles and pulls the trigger.

* * *

The loud bang shakes Marlene down to her bones and rings in her ears.

Then she feels herself flying.

The breeze blows gently, yet she was surrounded by warmth. She could smell the sea, leaves, salt, and plastic. No, it wasn't plastic; it was more like different chemicals. That couldn't be right. She opens her eyes.

She wished she hadn't.

The room spun by, different stuffed animals whirled by, staring back blankly. Something was holding her. Or someone. Marlene stares in surprise at Kowalski, who stared back with concern.

"Are you all right?" he asks. She nods silently. She _was_ all right. Better then all right. She laughs.

"We're going to make it!"

Then she notices Tom making his way towards them.

"I ain't missed once." He yells angrily. Marlene turns her head to look at him. He was getting closer, and Mother Eagle was slowing down, she wasn't used to carrying so much weight. Marlene's breath speeds up. Tom shuffles around, trying to get a good aim at them.

"To heck with it." He mutters. Re-angling his arms, Tom holds the rifle like a baseball bat and swings. Mother Eagle sees it coming and rises higher into the air. Marlene desperately holds on tighter to Kowalski, who winces in pain. She gasps and lets go, horrified at what she had done. And she falls.

Kowalski struggles to reach her. Once more, too late.

Marlene falls, getting closer and closer to the ground. But something stops her. Tom's rifle makes contact, hitting Marlene on the side and throwing her against the wall. She hears Kowalski yell her name, and then, everything gets quiet. Everything goes black.

* * *

I'm very indecisive at the moment, I mean, a tragic love story would hit the charts, but lots of you would probably be pi...err...angry, if I killed Marlene (or Kowalski ;) Let that be a warning of what's coming) so...It'll all come down to the last chapter, I won't tell you which XD


	11. Corresponding

Hello :D Can I just say that, though I still haven't figured out _exactly_ how much longer, I do know that TIEO+O will soon be over, and once I am, I do already have a new plan for a story :D Actually, Knockknocktimerico came up with it XD A Christmas special (Marski, yes, the Marski spirit is still going strong in me :S) which should be published near Christmas :D If we can work it out of course XD Blouper has agreed to help us out with it, which is like freaking fantastic cause she's the best freaking author ever in my opinion. :D So, be on the lookout for it ;) And, I do so wish to dedicate this ENTIRE story to them, they've been there all through it and it's just great that people like them exist and are willing to help me out. Also, Littlebirdy05, who writes FANTASTIC stories, Spottedpaw, and all of you who reviewed. Thank-you SO much :)

* * *

Almost forgot, this story uses he song "The Scientist" by Coldplay, I would recommend playing it while reading this :D

* * *

Corresponding

Kowalski feels as though he's been stripped of his feathers and thrown into a tub of ice water. His breath leaves him as he tries to call Marlene again, only being able to utter a short gasp. He tries to go to her, but Mother Eagle rises higher into the air, still dodging Tom's blows, and takes him along with her. She goes to the top of a cabinet, to the very back, and sets him down; sure that Tom would take some time to reach them. She stands before him, ready to take his orders. Sure that, whatever he chose, it would somehow help.

_I'm not Skipper, I can't do this. There's too much, not enough options…_

He takes a deep breath, realizing that it would be no help if he gave up. It was up to him.

"First we have to get Marlene, there's no telling how bad her injuries are. We'll need a distraction… fly to another room, keep Tom away from where she is, I'll try to help her and once we can we'll get the egg."

Mother Eagle nods. She spreads out her wings and soars out once more. Tom's cry of surprise is the cue Kowalski was waiting for. He climbs down, using the cabinet handles as handholds. He lands on a radio, accidentally pressing the on button. Loud music erupts from it, and Tom, upon hearing it, stop in his tracks and goes to him, the rifle still in his hands.

Kowalski jumps off as Tom smashes the radio, which promptly turns to another station. Soft music begins to play. Tom gets ready to aim but Mother Eagle flaps her wings on his face. Enraged, Tom begins to chase her once more. Kowalski runs to Marlene. The radio lies on the ground, still playing.

_Come up to meet you_

Kowalski bends down beside Marlene, laying his flipper on her shoulder.

_Tell you I'm sorry_

Her eyes were closed.

_You don't know how lovely you are._

"Marlene?"

_I had to find you. Tell you I need you._

"Oh please no."

_Tell you I set you apart._

He feels her heartbeat, which was slow and soft, its beat almost matching that of the song.

_Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions,_

"What do I do?"

_Aw, let's go back to, the start._

"Think Kowalski, you've been trained for this, think!"

_Running in circles, coming out tails, Heads on the science apart._

Her arm was broken, there was a large bump on her head, and she winced when he prodded her ribs. Blood bubbled from her mouth.

_Nobody said it was easy._

Her breathing slows. His grows ragged.

_It's such a shame for us to part._

Kowalski feels sobs coming, what could he do? There seemed to be nothing…

_Nobody said it was easy_

Marlene opens her eyes. She looks up at Kowalski and smiles plaintively.

_No one ever said it would be this hard._

Marlene reaches slowly, and takes his flipper, holding it in her paw.

_Aw take me back to the start. _

Kowalski looks down at her, her face becoming blurred. He looks away, not wanting her to see him like this. He blinks away the tears and stands up. He had to help her.

He goes around the room, picking up things that would help. He sits down beside Marlene once he had gotten what he could and begins to work on her, working as hard as he could to stop her pain.

Forgetting everything, his indecision, the trouble he was in, the searing ache on his own chest. Forgetting everything, Kowalski works meticulously to help Marlene.

_I was just guessin', at numbers and figures, pullin' the puzzles apart __Questions of science, Science and progress, that don't speak as loud as my heart_

He looks at her, she was in pain, that was obvious, but her eyes looked up at him trustingly.

_Tell me you love me,_

He feels a knot on his throat

_Come back to haunt me,_

No, he couldn't…

_Oh when I rush to the start. Runnin' in circles, chasing out tales, Comin' back as we are._

Kowalski gives the finishing touches to Marlene's splint and stands up. A shadow turns everything dark.

_Nobody said it was easy_

Tom picks him up roughly, Marlene reaching out to him too late.

_Aww it's such a shame for us to part._

Kowalski gasps in pain as Tom's tight grip envelops him.

_Nobody said it was easy_

His eyes lock on Marlene, alone on the floor, looking up at him, petrified.

_No one ever said it would be so hard_

Tom shoves him in a cage, locking it, in time to hear a small crack. He looks at his pocket and takes out the egg.

_I'm going back to the start_

Tom looks at the egg in disgust.

"You're of no use to me if you've hatched." He goes the edge of the room, callously throwing the small egg into it.

Kowalski grips the bars of his cage tightly, staring in shock. Tom, having forgotten all about Marlene, goes to his room and comes back with Mother Eagle in his hand. Her eyes were closed, and she didn't move as he set her on the table. Kowalski looks for Marlene, who was on the floor, trying to stand up. He tries to open the cage, but it was no use. It was too hard. He sits on the floor, covering his face with his flippers. Deep sobs echo on the cage. As good a scientist as Kowalski was, it still took him a minute to realize that they were his own.

This was all his fault.

Tom goes to the radio and turns it off, the song coming to an abrupt stop, its melody ringing in Kowalski's ears.

* * *

Marlene puts her arm around her ribs, moving slowly to keep from damaging anything. She had wanted to come along; she had chosen this, so she can't complain. However, she has to fix her error.

She looks down at her arm where she had a cut on the side; the one injury that didn't give her a sharp stab every time she moved. She couldn't remember it happening, she couldn't remember Kowalski being hurt, and she couldn't remember how the eagle had gotten hurt. Yet, she did remember, a few months back, when the same thing had happened. After releasing her from the cage, Kowalski had explained to her.

"_It could be considered a moment of partial conscious shut-down. You are controlled only by your natural instincts, a reaction brought on by your adaptation to enclosed shelters. It would explain your inability to recall the events that took place during that interval in time; basically, your conscious is "out of order." _

Had she done this?

She feels tears begin to build, this was her fault. She saw now, everything was her fault. She had disobeyed Skipper and went to see the eagle, she had gotten Kowalski in trouble and while she was wild, she might have hurt him. How else could he have gotten that cut on his chest?

She feels her body complain of the effort it was taking her to walk such a little distance, her steps shuffling and uncertain between running to help and keeping from any more aches.

Marlene hears broken sobs coming from the cage Kowalski was in. A heavy knot develops in her throat, but she grinds her teeth to keep from crying. Hearing Kowalski, analytical, composed Kowalski like that, so...not him, it was worse than a broken rib, so much worse than anything she had felt before. He heart beats painfully, hinting at something Marlene knew was no use ignoring. But she does. Instead, she advances forward; ready to do whatever it took to set Kowalski free.

_I _will _get you out._

Something small and brown darts past her suddenly. Marlene loses her balance and winces as pain bursts all around her body, and she tastes metal. Something catches her before she falls on the floor though. A gray arm holds hers. She looks up, coming face to face with Maurice.

* * *

"Marlene! What happened?"

She opens her mouth to reply but suddenly Julien comes darting around the corner. His face was as she had never seen, worried, angry, and somewhat regretful. He gives her a quick nod before turning to face forward again, his eyes locked on a trashcan. Tom jumps out of the way, giving a surprised cry as Julien runs past him. Then, regaining his composure, he holds his rifle up once more.

Mort jumps out of the trashcan, his eyes wide and gleeful.

"I got the egg! King Julien look!" He holds up a piece of brown shell, waving it in the air. Julien climbs up the trashcan and goes to Mort. He doesn't say anything as he reaches down. Standing slowly, Julien cradles a small baby chick in his arms. Marlene gasps.

Tom aims, ready to shoot. Julien looks up and puts down the chick, standing protectively in front of it, spreading out his arms.

"No one messes with _my _JJ!" Julien screeches. Tom pays no mind to him and shoots. Mort runs to King Julien and grabs onto him. Julien loses his balance and falls, the bullet making its way towards its target.

Julien.

He gives out a cry of pain as it hits his shoulder, which, had it not been for Mort, would have been his heart. Mort's eyes fill with tears.

"King Julien!"

Julien lies in the trashcan, gasping for breath. He reaches to the baby chick, which gives a soft peep in return. Mort stands up, his small paws curled into fists and murder in his eyes.

"You messed with the feet!" He growls, turning to Tom who was looking for more ammunition for his rifle. Mort begins to jump out of the trashcan but stops in his tracks.

"No, Mort, wait." Mort turns around. Julien was shaking his head; his hand pressed to his shoulder, now soaked in blood.

'You must first take JJ somewhere safe. It is my fault that he is in trouble, so I must ensure that he lives on to be the heir to the throne. Even if I am not there to rightfully guide him, he must at least make it." Julien gently pushes the baby chick to Mort, who takes it in his little arms and gazes at it with tear filled eyes.

"But…the feet." He whimpers. Julien sighs, but looks back at Mort with resolute eyes that had certain courage never before seen in him.

"Do it for the feet Mort, do it so that the kingdom may keep on."

Mort nods slowly and climbs quickly out of the trashcan, darting swiftly out of the way when Tom kicks out at him. He gets to Marlene and Maurice, who stare in surprise.

* * *

Kowalski hears another shot and winces. He had to get out. He pounds against the cage, trying to get out. It was solid on three walls, and bars on the front one, so he knew he had no chance, but he still kept on. He slips suddenly, and when he looks he realizes the rag he had tied around his chest had fallen off and that his cut was once more open. He feels dizziness envelop. _Think options Kowalski, think. _

_Think…_

* * *

Julien struggles to breathe, blood clogging his throat. He feels pain like he had never felt. He didn't like it. _It's not right for a king to have to go through this, _he thinks, _but, it _is_ for the major good, even if it is not me. It is for my JJ. Yes, you are dying a heroic death at least, you made sure that your kingdom will be taken care of, and the silly birds are on their way. _

He knew Skipper would fix things and get the others back; he cared for the zoo almost as much as he did, and even if he had an odd way of fixing things, he had always made it through. Julien moans as the pain gets worse. Taking a bullet was so hard.

_You are the king Julien, and you must do what you can to protect your subjects, they will honor you for this immensely...if only it didn't hurt so much. _

Julien tenses, whishing for the pain to leave, wondering why the Sky Spirits were taking so long.

* * *

Mother Eagle lies on the table, trying to open her eyes, but they felt so heavy, and it was so hard to move. She had to find her baby though, it was here and she could help it this time. She gazes through closed eyes at the darkness that surrounded her. But where was it?

_Is it lost once more?_

* * *

Marlene, Maurice, and Mort hide behind a couch. Marlene faces Maurice and Mort, Mort still clinging tightly to the chick, holding it with as much love as if it were his own younger brother.

"I have to help the others," she tells them, "you guys take get out of here, and we'll come out soon."

"But Marlene, you can't." replies Maurice, looking at her with concern, "You're hurt, that guy out there is a maniac, and besides, Skipper and the rest are on their way."

Marlene looks up.

"What?" Maurice nods quickly.

"They couldn't come as fast as us because we jumped over trees, whereas they had to come through the undergrowth, but they should be here soon."

"How…" Marlene stands, unable to believe his words. She looks around the room, expecting to see them come barging through sometime soon but all she sees are stuffed dead animals staring at her. A rabbit, elk, ducks…even two otters. She shudders

"They got back, and some otters came to us, Ray and Elm I think, they told us that you were missing, that you were in trouble. Skipper got things ready to leave, but we still had no idea where you were. Julien overheard us talking and he went to get the note Kowalski left. He heard that the egg was in trouble and he decided that no one would mess with the only possible heir to the throne, so we came along and found some tracks and clues you guys left."

"Clues?" mutters Marlene.

"The talk about an odd disappearance of some otter and penguin dolls at the NYSDEC, the confused taxi drivers, we found some of Kowalski's things lying around, and the trail he left in the forest."

Marlene shakes her head.

"It might be too late by the time they get here." She goes to the chick and kisses the top of its head. It peeps and lifts its head to look at her, but its eyes had yet to open. She blinks back tears and runs back to the kitchen, the sharp pains of her wounds becoming even more intense.

She stops when she gets to the door. Her eyes widen.

* * *

Tom stood with Kowalski in his hand, a knife in the other. Kowalski was struggling weakly against his hold.

"Thought you'd get away did you?" Tom says angrily, "Well I'll make sure you can't."

"No!" Marlene runs to them, feeling as if things were once more happening in slow motion, she wouldn't be able to get to him…

Tom laughs. Small knife in hand, he plunges it deep into Kowalski's skin.

Marlene lets all the tears she had been holding back fall as she hears Kowalski scream.

_No one ever said it would be this hard __  
__Aww take me back to the start_

Sorry ya'll, warning you before hand, there WILL be some character death in the next chapter, so, just be on the lookout.


	12. Atonement

Blouper is fantastic, will I ever shut up about it? The answer is no. So, I'll list some things. One, her story, Abnegation, gosh, freaking awesome, two, a few other story she's been writing that are extraordinary, and three, introducing me to Hourou Mosuku, which is about the best thing ever. Check it out ya'll, all of it, I promise fantastic items. Also, Mitch, Knockknocktimerico, cause we wrote a fic together and it most definitely oozes neatness! The Perfect Gift, check it out :) And, also, Littlebirdy, Spottedpaw, Skipperluvs, and all ya'll readers and reviewers. Thank-you!

* * *

Atonement

Kowalski tastes blood in his beak, suffocating, warm, such a heavy liquid to try to breathe through. Through his daze he sees Julien lying in the trashcan, curled into a tight ball and moaning. He sees Mother Eagle lying on the table, lifting her head up to stare at him. He sees Marlene standing on the floor looking at him with tears cascading down her face. He tries to call to her, but he can't open his beak.

Sharp stabs of pain envelop him, it makes breathing difficult.

Breathing. Hadn't it been such an easy task before? Now, it was like a new wave of torture every second.

Tom's laugh echoes in his ears like an eerie song, suddenly breaking off into a yelp. Kowalski falls through the air, the few last precious breaths he had managed to catch knocked out of him. He feels like he had been shattered into pieces, surely fragments of him were scattered around the floor at the moment, pieces that not even science would be able to put back together.

High-pitched shrieks sound in his ears. Through a blurry haze he sees feathers fly through the air.

Marlene stumbles to him and swiftly takes the knife off his shoulder, no pity in her face; letting the blood flow freely and profusely. Kowalski's eyes sway in her direction, relieved to see her.

"Would have been wiser to leave it there." He mumbles, watching the blood dyeing the pale-brown wood floor scarlet. Marlene hesitates for a second, then drops the façade and the tears begin once more.

"You're going to make it. There's got to be a way, I know there is." She holds his flipper tightly in her paw and stares into his eyes with fierce determination.

"You have to."

Stinging in his eyes force Kowalski to blink, suddenly his vision was distorted.

"Death is a normal part of the life cycle, not even the most ingenious scientists in history have been able to overcome it."

Marlene looks at him furiously.

"You will make it!" she growls, "or, or…."

"I doubt whether you'll be able to give me any proper punishment if I do." Kowalski laughs grimly, sharp jags of pain exploding in his chest. Marlene covers her face with her paws, glittering drops of water falling to the floor. Kowalski stares at her sadly. He tries to memorize her face as she looks up, feeling only half there. He wished to be able to stand and comfort her and promise that he wouldn't leave, but he felt heavy, as if a dark blanket was covering him.

Marlene gently wraps her arms around him. He can feel her rapid heartbeat against him, her sobs break him. He longs to be able to hug her back, but his flippers stay at his side. He can't move.

"I'm sorry Marlene." His voice sounds distant, faraway, he wasn't sure if she heard him or not. He tries to cling to the image of Marlene, as she disappears into a deep fog.

"Kowalski! Kowalski please! You can't leave me…please…"Marlene's sobs echo in the mist Kowalski was enveloped in. He was floating, no longer in pain, safe and happy. But he could still hear Marlene's voice. Now though, he couldn't decipher what she was saying, it was a language suddenly lost to him, earthly, and not belonging to where he was now.

How long he was in the fog he didn't know, he couldn't tell where the ground was, or where he was. It was all mist, nothing but mist, everywhere, and he was lost in it. No, not lost, he was now part of it.

_Not any kind of substance I know…_he thinks, examining the swirls of haze that surrounded him. His thoughts echoed around him, which surprised Kowalski as there seemed to be no matter from which the sound could reverberate.

He looks around, feeling as though there was no need for eyes here, but merely the _knowing_ of what was there.

He senses someone else with him, and somehow, seeing, but not seeing, he finds his parents. Kowalski noted that they were no different from when he had last seen them; they were a bit older than him when they died. He and his dad were the same height, and he was now taller than his mom. His father still seemed smart and composed, looking much like Kowalski; only Kowalski looked more like his mom in the soft facial features.

His mother, Helen, smiles at him. Behind her, Kowalski's dad, also named Kowalski, steps forward.

"It's too soon isn't it?" Kowalski's dad states. Helen runs to Kowalski and hugs him warmly.

"My little Kiwi, you're so grown up!" She laughs. Kowalski faces them, confused.

"I'm dead?" He asks, figuring it to be the only logical explanation for their appearance. His parents look at each other.

"Technically." Replies his dad. Kowalski looks around frantically.

"I have to go back!"

Helen looks at her son.

"You can't." She murmurs, "It's too late."

"We tried too." His dad tells him. Kowalski looks at them, bewildered.

"There has to be-" Helen shakes her head, taking his flipper. He tries to pull away.

"There's always a way!" He says, waving his flippers in the air blindly, hoping to come across a secret portal of some sort. Helen waits for him to stop. He does after a few minutes, feeling a deep emptiness in him.

"I had the chance," he whispers, "I had the chance and I ruined it…" His mother looks at him understandingly.

"Come on, let's go. You'll feel better soon, trust me." She begins to lead him away, Kowalski follows, looking back at the place he had come from, seeing only dark emptiness.

"Kowalski!"

He looks around, expecting to find his mom calling him but she was next to him also looking around, beside her his dad was doing the same thing. Suddenly, he smiles.

"We spoke too soon eh? Ah yes, the wonders of science." He shakes Kowalski's flipper as his mom gives him another hug.

"Take care of yourself, okay?" she whispers. Kowalski gives her a puzzled look.

"It was great to see you again…"

"Kowalski…"

Their voices become more and more faded until they are replaced entirely by another one.

"Kowalski!"

"Rico! Hurry up on those stitches! Private! Hurry up with that water. Elm, Ray! Get Ringtail and Momma Bird. Maurice, make sure to tie those knots as tight as possible, and Sad Eyes, keep that hatchling under tight supervision."

Kowalski begins to feel the excruciating pain all over again, coming to him so suddenly he couldn't help but give out a cry.

"Kowalski!"

He opens his eyes, Marlene's face eyes stared straight at his. They glowed with tears, relief, and happiness.

"You made it." She whispers, unable to utter any more words. He smiles, glad to find that it, at least, was a painless movement.

"It would seem so." He mutters. Marlene laughs, shaking her head at his light use of words.

Kowalski attempts to stand, trying to act casual, but fails miserably. Marlene looks at him.

"You're not as bright as I thought." She comments, running her paw across his brow gently. Kowalski glowers, but he had to admit it felt nice to have her care about him.

"Don't worry though," Marlene points, "Rico already stitched you up and he even bandaged you, if you're careful you should be able to heal soon." She smiles as Kowalski looks at himself, then, his eyes go back up to her.

"What about you?" He asks, looking at the new bindings around her. She waves his comment aside.

"Nothing bad." She grins.

"How long have I…"

"A few hours," Marlene stops smiling, fear showing in her face, "I thought you were dead." She whispers. Kowalski wants to tell her what he had seen but first he wants to know about the others.

"And everyone else?"

"Umm...Ray and Elm found some of their missing friends here…" she mutters, "they've been gone for a while. Mort is with the chick, Maurice is fine and so are Private, Skipper, and Rico."

She knew she wasn't fooling Kowalski.

"Julien and Mother Eagle…?" He asks expectantly. Marlene cringes.

"They….we can't…the injuries…there was…" She sighs, "We don't know, but they're not doing so well."

This time, Kowalski manages to stand, much to Marlene's shock.

"What are you doing you idiot!" She calls, trying to catch up to him. He doesn't answer, instead going to the place where most of the commotion seemed to be. Tom was tied and gagged in a corner, his eyes red and angry, in the other, where Kowalski was heading, sat Rico, Private, Skipper, and Elm, all bending over two still forms. Skipper's voice was frantic.

"Rico we need more Neosporin! Private! Try to stop the bleeding!" Rico hurriedly turns and coughs up a small tube, handing it to Skipper. Private squeaks, closing his eyes as presses a cloth against Julien's shoulder. Julien was no longer complaining, and his crown was missing from his head.

Skipper throws the Neosporin away.

"No! This won't help! We need something else…what was it! Curse it!" Skipper stands up and turns, surprised to see Kowalski coming their way.

"Kowal-"

Kowalski brushes past him and pushes the others aside. He gives a quick inspection of his two friends, taking longer on Mother Eagle.

He whispers something to her in a solemn voice to which she shakes her head. He pleads, Marlene failing to catch what he says despite her close proximity, but Mother Eagle looks at him with resolute eyes. Sighing, Kowalski looks at Rico.

"Rico, remember that needle you took from the doctor? The one I told you to be very careful with?" He mutters. Rico nods, slowly coughing up the needle with white filling. Kowalski takes it, removing the protective cap off the syringe and carefully injects it into Mother Eagle.

"What's in there?" asks Marlene. Kowalski looks up at her, shaking his head.

"It will…keep her from feeling pain."

He turns back to Julien with a frown on his beak.

"Rico, I need some more cloth, needle and a thread, antibiotics, water, and some gloves. We need to stop this hemorrhage first of all." Kowalski works on Julien with swift precision, mending and cleaning the parts that needed the most help while everyone stares.

Skipper snaps out of his stupor and begins giving commands again.

"Rico! Private! What are you two standing around for, we still have another patient!" Private and Rico stand and rush to Mother Eagle, who was lying still, staring at them quietly. Kowalski also stands.

"No."

Skipper looks at him.

"Do I hear insubordination soldier? Cause this is no time for it." Skipper's voice was cold and jagged. He glares at Kowalski, but Kowalski ignores him and keeps on.

"No. Private, go get Mort, make sure he brings the chick, Rico, a pillow, Marlene," he looks at her, "your presence is required." Marlene walks to him, her eyes questioning him like everyone else's. Kowalski sits by Mother Eagle and nods at her. Marlene sits beside him.

Private comes back with Mort, from whom Kowalski takes the chick, gingerly placing it on the pillow Rico had provided. Gently, he moves the chick within reaching distance of Mother Eagle.

With sparkling eyes, Mother Eagle runs her beak over the head of her young hatchling, which peeped gently. She coos at it, sounding as if giving it her last farewell. Surprisingly, the chick lifts its head to listen, chirping back occasionally. Everyone stares in awe.

Finally, Mother Eagle looks at Kowalski, giving him a short nod. Kowalski quietly takes the chick and holds it in his arms. Mother Eagle gives one last look around at everyone, stopping at Marlene, whose gaze she holds peacefully, and Marlene gets the message. She was forgiven.

Mort goes to Mother Eagle and hugs her gently around the neck.

"I like Eagle." He smiles.

Mother Eagle sighs contently and lays her head down on the pillow, closing her eyes. No sound is heard in the room as Mother Eagle slowly becomes still. Marlene holds her breath, waiting for her to get up. When she remains still, Marlene looks at Kowalski with shocked eyes. He looks away.

"Why didn't you…"Marlene trails off, Kowalski hadn't actually left Mother Eagle to _die,_ had he?

"There was no way, she was far too gone." He mutters, "She knew it was coming…the last thing she wanted was for me to keep her awake long enough to see the chick."

Marlene's eyes fill with tears. She feels Kowalski wrap his flippers around her as she lets them fall. She realizes he was right. If he had tried to help, Mother Eagle would probably not have made it anyway, and she never would have gotten the chance to see her baby…

It was the sacrifice only a mother would make.

Skipper rises to position and salutes. Everyone follows suit. Marlene hugs Kowalski and he hugs her back, this time, both silently crying their loss.

The chick cuddles between her fur and his feathers, feeling safe and warm.

* * *

Character death, ya'll thought it'd be Kowalski? Nah, I'd never do that...or at least not until I come up with something great. But yes, Mother Eagle is gone. Well, least she has someone to watch over her little chick :)


	13. Solving the Equation

This is, in fact, the last chapter of The Irrelevant Equation of One Plus One so, to you all, thank-you for reading :) To Blouper, to Knockknocktimerico, to LittleBirdy, Spottedpaw, Jackandjill, RavenfeathersofDarkness, and all who reviewed, added me to their favorites and even turned to the Marski side of things :D That was the whole point, Marski CAN happen! The fanclub for it is .com/spots/marski Of course, it needs more people, Marski is only now beginning, but, with this being Fanfiction, even if you don't become a fan of it, you can add your Marski stories there! :) So, please check it out +D

* * *

Solving the Equation

Ray and Elm thanked everyone for helping them find their lost members, the two stuffed otters Marlene had seen before, and the reason why Marlene had seen the two empty bunks at their place when she was supposed to be staying over. Kowalski had gone to them not only to ask them to watch over Marlene, but also because he knew that they came to this area often, being aboriginal to the land. During one of their missions (since they too, were in the force) the two recruits had gotten lost and neither Ray nor Elm had been able to find them. Until now.

Tom was left tied and gagged in his cabin. Skipper declared if he got never got untied he wouldn't give a hoot about it.

Mother Eagle was given a last farewell beneath a grand oak tree. Kowalski and Julien both insisted on attending, despite their current states. Rico made sure to mark the tree with what little writing he knew, cutting out the letters "MB" on the bark with a small knife. Once Kowalski and Julien's health was stable enough for them to move around Skipper, Rico and Private quickly overcame a pilot and got a plane ready to go back to New York. Despite several attempts by the police to figure out who took the plane they never found the culprits, nor any sign of damage to the plane besides a missing wheel that was apparently lost during the landing.

Back at the zoo, the penguins found several of the animals posing as penguins for them, ensuring them that Alice suspected nothing. Skipper thanked Mason and Phil for watching over things while they were gone.

Marlene was allowed to go back to her habitat but was asked to stay at the HQ as much as possible to ensure that she didn't develop any problems. To Skipper's annoyance Julien had to stay with them until he was fully healed, and after such a brave act of heroism and so much to endure Julien was even worse than before. However, he was nicer to everyone, even giving Mort a quick pat on the head.

The zoo went back to its usual routine with the humans being remarkably ignorant of everything that had happened.

One day while Marlene was out teaching Cube (as the chick had come to be named by Kowalski) how to fly, she noticed the humans walking around the perimeter of Mother Eagle's nest. After a few minutes the nest was taken down and the humans left. As soon as they were gone Marlene came to realize that she was now responsible for Cube, she was like his mother now.

The thought filled her with fear, but then, she realized that she could do this, and she was sure Kowalski would help, and Mort, he seemed to always be around them. She smiled and continued to teach Cube more of how to move his wings.

Life on the HQ went back to normal as soon as Julien left, which took a few weeks. With the now "Glorious, Most Heroic of all Kings" gone, the penguins were able to go back to drills, missions and new war tactics. All, except for one, who lasted the longest healing. On the third week though, despite the still healing wounds, Kowalski managed to get up and go to Skipper, who had not said one word to him in all that time.

Skipper was, at the moment sitting on his table, drinking his coffee and frowning at himself. Private and Rico were on watch duty, Skipper had stayed behind to make sure Julien didn't try to force Kowalski to reenact the way he had saved them all (exaggerated, making it look as if all was lost and all had been saved by Julien, which he swore was how it had in truth happened) .

"Skipper."

Skipper turns slowly, sighing.

"You're not allowed out of your bunk soldier." He declares. Kowalski looks down.

"Skipper, I…I just wanted to say, that I…" he stands up straight, facing Skipper in the eye, "I just wanted to say that-"

Skipper holds up his flipper, shaking his head. Kowalski stops talking, bracing himself for what was coming.

"I'm sorry." Kowalski stares.

"What?"

Skipper looks at him, standing up.

"I'm sorry. I knew you made the fake invitations, I knew it was all fake; I used the opportunity to take me and the boys back to the Academy and plan out our new missions with Commander South. I knew I couldn't do this without having someone stay back and watch over the zoo, figured it was the perfect opportunity…"

Skipper trails off.

"I knew…" his eyes become watery, but he blinks furiously, "What I didn't know, was that you had a whole lot more trouble to mend than anticipated, that you had to go so far away. Alaska for Pete's sake! How is it that I, your Commanding Officer, didn't notice? Marlene, you, Ringtail, and that poor chick... I take full blame. I understand if you leave…"

Kowalski looks at Skipper.

"I'm not leaving." He states. Skipper looks at him, surprised. Kowalski keeps on.

"The odds were just against us all this time, but mistake or not, you were able to get there in time, and if you still want me as your recruit I will follow your orders until the end."

Skipper smiles, giving Kowalski a full military salute. Kowalski salutes back.

"Now, if you don't mind…"

* * *

Kowalski goes to Marlene, who was in her habitat fixing her rosebush, Mort and the chick beside her, the chick already wearing brown fluffy feathers and had opened its eyes, which were the same brown as his mom's.

Marlene looks up when she hears his shuffling steps, remembering how quiet he used to be.

"Hey! You're up." She smiles. Kowalski smiles back. He goes to Mort, petting both his and the chick's head.

"Glad to see you're up too." He responds. Marlene notices something different in Kowalski. He goes to her rosebush, gently caressing the petals.

"You're doing a good job with this flower." He states. Marlene nods, still trying to figure out what had changed.

"You're more erect." She says out loud. Kowalski looks up.

"Pardon?"

"You….you seem more, I don't know, confident…more erect." She struggles with her words, but she felt that they were the precise ones she needed to describe him. Kowalski used to lag back in the group, would only move when Skipper told him to or when he had planned it out scientifically on his clipboard, but now he was standing before her, without Skipper or anyone else from the group and his clipboard nowhere in sight. Because of his injuries, he was standing a bit oddly to keep from damaging anything, but, somehow, he seemed more certain in the way he stood, more sure of what he would do and of the capability of his actions.

"Shall I take that as a compliment?" He questions. Marlene rolls her eyes.

"Sure, if you want to."

Kowalski begins to look down, Marlene expecting him to give her a muttered response and an excuse to leave, but instead he stops, and looks straight at her.

"You look beautiful."

She can feel her face blush beneath her fur, and opposite to her assumption, it is now she who finds herself looking down and struggling to comply a response.

To her surprise Kowalski chuckles.

"What happened to the "female supremacy" you so frequently speak of?" He teases. Marlene glares, much to his amusement.

"Yeah…cute remark…" she grumbles.

"Was it?" Kowalski cocks his head in surprise. Marlene stares, unable to figure out what was happening. For some reason, her stomach felt fluttery, she felt as if she was floating, and yet, the reason that she didn't fly away was the penguin in front of her. _What was going on?_

"Kowalski…" _What did she want to say?_

She looks around, at her red rosebush that glowed in the sunlight, at her pond which was so fresh and blue, at Mort who sat playing with the little chick, they were almost like brothers now, and finally, at Kowalski, who was staring at her expectantly.

Everything was so perfect.

"Kowalski…" _How to phrase it in a way that he could understand what she meant?_

"Does….well, you, you know that…you know that one plus one equals two right? Have you ever thought of it?" _What was she saying!_

Kowalski blinks in confusion but tries to follow what she meant.

"It's… irrelevant. In most occasions one plus one is a simple equation that has little or no importance to the quandary, whereas there are several other factors that might can be reckoned to be of higher substance. I tend to ignore such inconsequential details in the matter of our missions."

Marlene blinks.

"You lost me."

"Did I?"

How sure of what he said Kowalski was, and how very off he was in truth. She waits as he tries to explain once more.

"One plus one has almost no importance in various situations due to…"

She can't take it.

"Stop."

Kowalski taps his chin in wonder, trying to figure out what was going on in her mind.

"All right," Marlene begins once more, "Perhaps I didn't phrase that correctly." She goes up to him, so close he steps back nervously, but she keeps on until they're face to face. Her heart beats rapidly in her chest, but she knew she had to get this out now.

"Back a few days ago (had it really been only a few days?) you said…you told Skipper that you thought I could handle things on my own."

"You….heard?"

Marlene nods.

"And…well, Skipper told me that he knew, but you were able to make a plan to carry out your research on your own." Kowalski stares intently at her, trying to figure out what she meant. Marlene keeps on, "Well, we both thought we had it right but we didn't. I wasn't able to handle things on my own, and your plan fell apart."

"I'm afraid I don't follow…" Kowalski's forehead is creased, he was frowning.

Marlene takes a deep breath.

"One plus one equals two. Two is a strong number...You're able to fully comprehend the trouble of not planning ahead and being spontaneous, and I'm able to help out when things don't go well…" She looks down. She couldn't say it; there was no way to say what she meant.

Kowalski's eyes grow wide. She looks up as he slowly takes her paw in his flipper and shows her the difference.

"We aren't corresponding species." He murmurs. Marlene looks at her four fingers lined with fur against the one tip of his black flipper. She grasps her paw around his.

"Either way you add it you still get two." She replies.

She has heard Kowalski ramble on and on and on about magnetism; the pulling attraction of two magnets when you reverse the polarity. In this case, Marlene suddenly found herself close to Kowalski, so close, and suddenly all she could see were his eyes, which were locked on hers. A deep blue that reminded her of the ocean and the sky. The sky she had wanted to be able to fly in for so long.

And when two magnets join together, nothing pulls them apart.

Marlene could feel the electricity travel through her.

Mort and the chick cheer as they see Marlene and Kowalski kiss. Skipper comes along with Private and Rico. Skipper stands proudly, Rico laughs loudly, and Private smiles and claps. Kinetic energy can be transported from one object to another.

She laughs when he releases her and he stands in surprise at what he had done. He remembers the breakthrough he had hoped to find through the research he made with the eagle. Well, he'd made a breakthrough all right. Although his hypothesis had been wrong. Not that that mattered, he was experiencing high levels of bliss, and his cardiac reading was certainly off the charts, and he felt like he was flying.

_So it_ had _been love all along._

One plus one wasn't as irrelevant as he had first thought.

He looks down at his flipper, which was held by Marlene's paw. They were different, both outside and inside, but he knew that they loved each other despite the differences. As Marlene had said, either way you add it you still get two.

He looks deep into Marlene's brown eyes, which stared back with as much happiness as he felt. He feels words coming to him, words he had never said before to anyone, words that, in that certain order, he had never said at all.

"I love you."

Marlene's eyes fill with tears.

"I love you too."

He feels someone tugging on his flipper, and upon looking down, he sees Mort smiling up at him, the chick beside him. Marlene laughs and picks up the chick. Kowalski picks up Mort and hugs Marlene, the chick between them. Private runs to them, followed by Rico, and finally Skipper. The group laughs together, seeing the strange family they had created. But they were happy.

Even science could not explain the love that bounded all these animals so tightly together.

* * *

Thank-you all for sticking with me this far, I hope you liked the story :D Sequel one-shot is Kowalski's Great Works, read if you haven't already, and to those of you who have, thanks once more :)

Love you all!!! ~Monsy

Hold up.....there's Thirteen Chapters?! Oh, that is bad luck.....I might have to fix that ;)


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